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To make great games you need many different combinations to make the formula work, Graphics, Gameplay, Sound, Lifespan (which every game needs to succeed) and most importantly you need variation, I mean could you imagine playing a games like Smackdown 3 or even GT3 (maybe a better example), imagine playing with only one car on one track or playing smackdown in the same setting with only the two same wrestlers, its hard to imagine now but remember how some games were like this?
Remember that game pong, now this was a game which may not have had much variation but it was so funny watch your friends lash out at the nearest object after missing the all important match point hit, but most importantly addictive as the next game (which at the time there wasn't much to rival it for its pure 2-player mayhem), it required skill by each player to win and that determination to win the game, but you were rewarded for your patience and time in the end.
Practice makes perfect or so they say…
Well that statement isn’t entirely true, because how come new players can button bash on Tekken and beat you? , Nearly all of us have been beaten by the button bashing, even me and I considered myself to be fairly good at beat-em up games, its so frustrating, because there is no variation in the moves, you continually try to fight of the same combo and it becomes harder, the question I put to all of you gaming people is, do games need variation or don’t they? Well let me go into more detail.
One Great example of a game with variation I personally would have to say is GTA3, a game that’s given the gamers (all of us) what we wanted, people said that the original GTA games lacked variation in missions, but GTA3 delivered the goods, why I hear you all ask?, simply because the developer used their time wisely to make the game which is not only fun, but to keep you coming back to play over and over again. So how can developers use their time wisely to make a game with a lot of variation?
Well a simple answer would be to either borrow ideas from great examples like GTA3 and GT3, or look closely at the ideas used and make them better, or even use an idea that has failed in the past and make it work, many developers are put off at the fact that using tried or even ideas that have failed will not turn out well, but if no one tries them then we won’t get anywhere, we will be playing games with very little variation, I don’t want that and many of you people don’t want that, Rockstar took a massive risk with GTA3, but it was executed brilliantly and all of that hard work has paid off, but why are no other companies following suit?, I think its kind of ironic that they are not taking hints from developers such as Rockstar and implementing them in their own games but variation can be good and bad for the following reasons :-
Good
*Different ideas used will add more depth to the game
*Skill in different departments can reward players
*Lifespan increases substantially
*Huge missions/sub games can be created using various genres mixed together (GTA3)
*Many choices in Gameplay options
*Graphics can vary more depending on hardware used
Bad
*Same combo’s/tricks used over again
*Genres mixed do not bode well with game in certain cases
* Repetition in Gameplay
* Longer development times?
* Hard to get to grips with different styles of Gameplay used
* Too many ideas overpower the point of the game
When developing games many more and some of the above factors will surely be taken into consideration, every game will have bad points, developers must now start taking risks, I’m not saying that risks haven’t been taken but more and more games need more variation, this always happens to me and I bet it does to a lot of you, you buy a game and say there is something you want to do in the game like, for instance in Smackdown 3 I said “I wish there were 3D people in the crowd”, we all do it and its down to variation, existing things or features that can be improved upon for the next version of the game, but sometimes it can all go wrong and those features are not put into the sequel to the game or even worse , the game is made worse. Its happened so many times, GTA2 was not drastically different from the original GTA and so it was maybe not appreciated as much as maybe it should have been, the original game could have been improved upon, but not by very much due to the limitations of the engine used, many people soon forgot this though as GTA3 was released as the developers listened to what people wanted and waited until the right hardware was available, but are developers wasting valuable time on other aspects and not on make the game vary as much as possible to keep the gamer coming back?, it’s a question that will be debated a lot, some may say that certain games don’t need much variation, when the truth is they do , and others will say a game needs a lot more variation, its becoming more and more regular as more developers are realising that games need to have fresh and new ideas to make the gamer keep coming back, it could be sub games, it could be multiplayer games or it could be different gameplay elements which are implemented. The word ‘fun’ also plays a big part too, older games may not have had much variation but they were fun, but are today’s games leaving the fun factor out? Well if GTA3 is anything to go by then no, but imagine if in GTA3 you played the part of the cops, would you enjoy it as much? Nope thought not, it’s the whole thought of you play which counts, it makes it more fun being a criminal than being the guys that stop them, so variation is seen from two points of view like most things are, the good and the bad (as mentioned above), old classics like pong and space invaders may not have had much variation but they were so addictive and fun to play, we still need games like that once in a while, because to much variation may stray away from the whole point of the game, as long as the main point of the game stands out and its fun to play then we can enjoy a lot of years with great new games.
How do we define Variation? It simply means to modify something, basically improving on the ideas you already have, but do developers make note of the definition? Well yes and no. Many games these days are criticised for their lack of variation, because as well all know we don’t want to be doing the same old thing all of the time, we want changes, we want new missions that differ from each other, we want 100+ cars in racing games such as GT3, we want every wrestler in the WWF in the game, but are you personally happy with what current games like Smackdown 3 and GT3 bring us or do you want more? If there is one thing GT3 needs its variable damage, this has be sorely missed from previous GT games, and would make the game so much more real, Smackdown 3 for instance in my opinion needs a little more variation in moves, and then it would be my perfect WWF experience, but which games would be your perfect experience with a little more variation?
New Hardware technology has obviously made a huge impact on the variation, because they allow developers to use massive areas for you to play in, like the massive city in GTA3 and variation in gameplay and graphics, as the new hardware can handle the amount of information that is being shifted around the screen, thus allows for massive genres being mixed together like driving missions and shooting missions both using the same engine with the hardware being able to cope.
The PS2 has created a massive world for GTA3, but with new consoles coming (Xbox and Gamecube) surely the variation is bound to improve, or will it?
The burning question is, do games have enough variation? Or is more needed?
Thanks for Reading
SPiKe2k J
Remember that game pong, now this was a game which may not have had much variation but it was so funny watch your friends lash out at the nearest object after missing the all important match point hit, but most importantly addictive as the next game (which at the time there wasn't much to rival it for its pure 2-player mayhem), it required skill by each player to win and that determination to win the game, but you were rewarded for your patience and time in the end.
Practice makes perfect or so they say…
Well that statement isn’t entirely true, because how come new players can button bash on Tekken and beat you? , Nearly all of us have been beaten by the button bashing, even me and I considered myself to be fairly good at beat-em up games, its so frustrating, because there is no variation in the moves, you continually try to fight of the same combo and it becomes harder, the question I put to all of you gaming people is, do games need variation or don’t they? Well let me go into more detail.
One Great example of a game with variation I personally would have to say is GTA3, a game that’s given the gamers (all of us) what we wanted, people said that the original GTA games lacked variation in missions, but GTA3 delivered the goods, why I hear you all ask?, simply because the developer used their time wisely to make the game which is not only fun, but to keep you coming back to play over and over again. So how can developers use their time wisely to make a game with a lot of variation?
Well a simple answer would be to either borrow ideas from great examples like GTA3 and GT3, or look closely at the ideas used and make them better, or even use an idea that has failed in the past and make it work, many developers are put off at the fact that using tried or even ideas that have failed will not turn out well, but if no one tries them then we won’t get anywhere, we will be playing games with very little variation, I don’t want that and many of you people don’t want that, Rockstar took a massive risk with GTA3, but it was executed brilliantly and all of that hard work has paid off, but why are no other companies following suit?, I think its kind of ironic that they are not taking hints from developers such as Rockstar and implementing them in their own games but variation can be good and bad for the following reasons :-
Good
*Different ideas used will add more depth to the game
*Skill in different departments can reward players
*Lifespan increases substantially
*Huge missions/sub games can be created using various genres mixed together (GTA3)
*Many choices in Gameplay options
*Graphics can vary more depending on hardware used
Bad
*Same combo’s/tricks used over again
*Genres mixed do not bode well with game in certain cases
* Repetition in Gameplay
* Longer development times?
* Hard to get to grips with different styles of Gameplay used
* Too many ideas overpower the point of the game
When developing games many more and some of the above factors will surely be taken into consideration, every game will have bad points, developers must now start taking risks, I’m not saying that risks haven’t been taken but more and more games need more variation, this always happens to me and I bet it does to a lot of you, you buy a game and say there is something you want to do in the game like, for instance in Smackdown 3 I said “I wish there were 3D people in the crowd”, we all do it and its down to variation, existing things or features that can be improved upon for the next version of the game, but sometimes it can all go wrong and those features are not put into the sequel to the game or even worse , the game is made worse. Its happened so many times, GTA2 was not drastically different from the original GTA and so it was maybe not appreciated as much as maybe it should have been, the original game could have been improved upon, but not by very much due to the limitations of the engine used, many people soon forgot this though as GTA3 was released as the developers listened to what people wanted and waited until the right hardware was available, but are developers wasting valuable time on other aspects and not on make the game vary as much as possible to keep the gamer coming back?, it’s a question that will be debated a lot, some may say that certain games don’t need much variation, when the truth is they do , and others will say a game needs a lot more variation, its becoming more and more regular as more developers are realising that games need to have fresh and new ideas to make the gamer keep coming back, it could be sub games, it could be multiplayer games or it could be different gameplay elements which are implemented. The word ‘fun’ also plays a big part too, older games may not have had much variation but they were fun, but are today’s games leaving the fun factor out? Well if GTA3 is anything to go by then no, but imagine if in GTA3 you played the part of the cops, would you enjoy it as much? Nope thought not, it’s the whole thought of you play which counts, it makes it more fun being a criminal than being the guys that stop them, so variation is seen from two points of view like most things are, the good and the bad (as mentioned above), old classics like pong and space invaders may not have had much variation but they were so addictive and fun to play, we still need games like that once in a while, because to much variation may stray away from the whole point of the game, as long as the main point of the game stands out and its fun to play then we can enjoy a lot of years with great new games.
How do we define Variation? It simply means to modify something, basically improving on the ideas you already have, but do developers make note of the definition? Well yes and no. Many games these days are criticised for their lack of variation, because as well all know we don’t want to be doing the same old thing all of the time, we want changes, we want new missions that differ from each other, we want 100+ cars in racing games such as GT3, we want every wrestler in the WWF in the game, but are you personally happy with what current games like Smackdown 3 and GT3 bring us or do you want more? If there is one thing GT3 needs its variable damage, this has be sorely missed from previous GT games, and would make the game so much more real, Smackdown 3 for instance in my opinion needs a little more variation in moves, and then it would be my perfect WWF experience, but which games would be your perfect experience with a little more variation?
New Hardware technology has obviously made a huge impact on the variation, because they allow developers to use massive areas for you to play in, like the massive city in GTA3 and variation in gameplay and graphics, as the new hardware can handle the amount of information that is being shifted around the screen, thus allows for massive genres being mixed together like driving missions and shooting missions both using the same engine with the hardware being able to cope.
The PS2 has created a massive world for GTA3, but with new consoles coming (Xbox and Gamecube) surely the variation is bound to improve, or will it?
The burning question is, do games have enough variation? Or is more needed?
Thanks for Reading
SPiKe2k J
Page:
Great post Spike.
Well, I'd say, games these days need a lot of variation. Playing GT3 over and over with the same car on the same track would be like watching watching bowls on television (absolutely no point).
I like my variation in a game, a great example I think is MGS, awesome gameplay, new locations, enemies, and of course great graphics for its time. This game lasted for ages, and still is an enjoyable game to play.
But, some games are just not varied enough, take Fifa, the graphics are great but with no variation in gameplay has let it slip, and over the years, they (EA) thought they could survive on just good looks, but a great advance in gameplay was needed. They've tried to do this with Fifa 2002 but, was a few pennies short of a pound. With a game like this more variation is needed, with others, SD3 for example a little variation is needed, they give you the bigger and better roster changes and matches, but was is needed in a game like this is an advanced story mode. Hopefully developers will soon pick up on this and supply us with some great advanced games or next gen as they are called.
Great post again Spike.
Cheers.
The Game Is Back...
Well, I'd say, games these days need a lot of variation. Playing GT3 over and over with the same car on the same track would be like watching watching bowls on television (absolutely no point).
I like my variation in a game, a great example I think is MGS, awesome gameplay, new locations, enemies, and of course great graphics for its time. This game lasted for ages, and still is an enjoyable game to play.
But, some games are just not varied enough, take Fifa, the graphics are great but with no variation in gameplay has let it slip, and over the years, they (EA) thought they could survive on just good looks, but a great advance in gameplay was needed. They've tried to do this with Fifa 2002 but, was a few pennies short of a pound. With a game like this more variation is needed, with others, SD3 for example a little variation is needed, they give you the bigger and better roster changes and matches, but was is needed in a game like this is an advanced story mode. Hopefully developers will soon pick up on this and supply us with some great advanced games or next gen as they are called.
Great post again Spike.
Cheers.
The Game Is Back...
To make great games you need many different combinations to make the formula work, Graphics, Gameplay, Sound, Lifespan (which every game needs to succeed) and most importantly you need variation, I mean could you imagine playing a games like Smackdown 3 or even GT3 (maybe a better example), imagine playing with only one car on one track or playing smackdown in the same setting with only the two same wrestlers, its hard to imagine now but remember how some games were like this?
Remember that game pong, now this was a game which may not have had much variation but it was so funny watch your friends lash out at the nearest object after missing the all important match point hit, but most importantly addictive as the next game (which at the time there wasn't much to rival it for its pure 2-player mayhem), it required skill by each player to win and that determination to win the game, but you were rewarded for your patience and time in the end.
Practice makes perfect or so they say…
Well that statement isn’t entirely true, because how come new players can button bash on Tekken and beat you? , Nearly all of us have been beaten by the button bashing, even me and I considered myself to be fairly good at beat-em up games, its so frustrating, because there is no variation in the moves, you continually try to fight of the same combo and it becomes harder, the question I put to all of you gaming people is, do games need variation or don’t they? Well let me go into more detail.
One Great example of a game with variation I personally would have to say is GTA3, a game that’s given the gamers (all of us) what we wanted, people said that the original GTA games lacked variation in missions, but GTA3 delivered the goods, why I hear you all ask?, simply because the developer used their time wisely to make the game which is not only fun, but to keep you coming back to play over and over again. So how can developers use their time wisely to make a game with a lot of variation?
Well a simple answer would be to either borrow ideas from great examples like GTA3 and GT3, or look closely at the ideas used and make them better, or even use an idea that has failed in the past and make it work, many developers are put off at the fact that using tried or even ideas that have failed will not turn out well, but if no one tries them then we won’t get anywhere, we will be playing games with very little variation, I don’t want that and many of you people don’t want that, Rockstar took a massive risk with GTA3, but it was executed brilliantly and all of that hard work has paid off, but why are no other companies following suit?, I think its kind of ironic that they are not taking hints from developers such as Rockstar and implementing them in their own games but variation can be good and bad for the following reasons :-
Good
*Different ideas used will add more depth to the game
*Skill in different departments can reward players
*Lifespan increases substantially
*Huge missions/sub games can be created using various genres mixed together (GTA3)
*Many choices in Gameplay options
*Graphics can vary more depending on hardware used
Bad
*Same combo’s/tricks used over again
*Genres mixed do not bode well with game in certain cases
* Repetition in Gameplay
* Longer development times?
* Hard to get to grips with different styles of Gameplay used
* Too many ideas overpower the point of the game
When developing games many more and some of the above factors will surely be taken into consideration, every game will have bad points, developers must now start taking risks, I’m not saying that risks haven’t been taken but more and more games need more variation, this always happens to me and I bet it does to a lot of you, you buy a game and say there is something you want to do in the game like, for instance in Smackdown 3 I said “I wish there were 3D people in the crowd”, we all do it and its down to variation, existing things or features that can be improved upon for the next version of the game, but sometimes it can all go wrong and those features are not put into the sequel to the game or even worse , the game is made worse. Its happened so many times, GTA2 was not drastically different from the original GTA and so it was maybe not appreciated as much as maybe it should have been, the original game could have been improved upon, but not by very much due to the limitations of the engine used, many people soon forgot this though as GTA3 was released as the developers listened to what people wanted and waited until the right hardware was available, but are developers wasting valuable time on other aspects and not on make the game vary as much as possible to keep the gamer coming back?, it’s a question that will be debated a lot, some may say that certain games don’t need much variation, when the truth is they do , and others will say a game needs a lot more variation, its becoming more and more regular as more developers are realising that games need to have fresh and new ideas to make the gamer keep coming back, it could be sub games, it could be multiplayer games or it could be different gameplay elements which are implemented. The word ‘fun’ also plays a big part too, older games may not have had much variation but they were fun, but are today’s games leaving the fun factor out? Well if GTA3 is anything to go by then no, but imagine if in GTA3 you played the part of the cops, would you enjoy it as much? Nope thought not, it’s the whole thought of you play which counts, it makes it more fun being a criminal than being the guys that stop them, so variation is seen from two points of view like most things are, the good and the bad (as mentioned above), old classics like pong and space invaders may not have had much variation but they were so addictive and fun to play, we still need games like that once in a while, because to much variation may stray away from the whole point of the game, as long as the main point of the game stands out and its fun to play then we can enjoy a lot of years with great new games.
How do we define Variation? It simply means to modify something, basically improving on the ideas you already have, but do developers make note of the definition? Well yes and no. Many games these days are criticised for their lack of variation, because as well all know we don’t want to be doing the same old thing all of the time, we want changes, we want new missions that differ from each other, we want 100+ cars in racing games such as GT3, we want every wrestler in the WWF in the game, but are you personally happy with what current games like Smackdown 3 and GT3 bring us or do you want more? If there is one thing GT3 needs its variable damage, this has be sorely missed from previous GT games, and would make the game so much more real, Smackdown 3 for instance in my opinion needs a little more variation in moves, and then it would be my perfect WWF experience, but which games would be your perfect experience with a little more variation?
New Hardware technology has obviously made a huge impact on the variation, because they allow developers to use massive areas for you to play in, like the massive city in GTA3 and variation in gameplay and graphics, as the new hardware can handle the amount of information that is being shifted around the screen, thus allows for massive genres being mixed together like driving missions and shooting missions both using the same engine with the hardware being able to cope.
The PS2 has created a massive world for GTA3, but with new consoles coming (Xbox and Gamecube) surely the variation is bound to improve, or will it?
The burning question is, do games have enough variation? Or is more needed?
Thanks for Reading
SPiKe2k J
Remember that game pong, now this was a game which may not have had much variation but it was so funny watch your friends lash out at the nearest object after missing the all important match point hit, but most importantly addictive as the next game (which at the time there wasn't much to rival it for its pure 2-player mayhem), it required skill by each player to win and that determination to win the game, but you were rewarded for your patience and time in the end.
Practice makes perfect or so they say…
Well that statement isn’t entirely true, because how come new players can button bash on Tekken and beat you? , Nearly all of us have been beaten by the button bashing, even me and I considered myself to be fairly good at beat-em up games, its so frustrating, because there is no variation in the moves, you continually try to fight of the same combo and it becomes harder, the question I put to all of you gaming people is, do games need variation or don’t they? Well let me go into more detail.
One Great example of a game with variation I personally would have to say is GTA3, a game that’s given the gamers (all of us) what we wanted, people said that the original GTA games lacked variation in missions, but GTA3 delivered the goods, why I hear you all ask?, simply because the developer used their time wisely to make the game which is not only fun, but to keep you coming back to play over and over again. So how can developers use their time wisely to make a game with a lot of variation?
Well a simple answer would be to either borrow ideas from great examples like GTA3 and GT3, or look closely at the ideas used and make them better, or even use an idea that has failed in the past and make it work, many developers are put off at the fact that using tried or even ideas that have failed will not turn out well, but if no one tries them then we won’t get anywhere, we will be playing games with very little variation, I don’t want that and many of you people don’t want that, Rockstar took a massive risk with GTA3, but it was executed brilliantly and all of that hard work has paid off, but why are no other companies following suit?, I think its kind of ironic that they are not taking hints from developers such as Rockstar and implementing them in their own games but variation can be good and bad for the following reasons :-
Good
*Different ideas used will add more depth to the game
*Skill in different departments can reward players
*Lifespan increases substantially
*Huge missions/sub games can be created using various genres mixed together (GTA3)
*Many choices in Gameplay options
*Graphics can vary more depending on hardware used
Bad
*Same combo’s/tricks used over again
*Genres mixed do not bode well with game in certain cases
* Repetition in Gameplay
* Longer development times?
* Hard to get to grips with different styles of Gameplay used
* Too many ideas overpower the point of the game
When developing games many more and some of the above factors will surely be taken into consideration, every game will have bad points, developers must now start taking risks, I’m not saying that risks haven’t been taken but more and more games need more variation, this always happens to me and I bet it does to a lot of you, you buy a game and say there is something you want to do in the game like, for instance in Smackdown 3 I said “I wish there were 3D people in the crowd”, we all do it and its down to variation, existing things or features that can be improved upon for the next version of the game, but sometimes it can all go wrong and those features are not put into the sequel to the game or even worse , the game is made worse. Its happened so many times, GTA2 was not drastically different from the original GTA and so it was maybe not appreciated as much as maybe it should have been, the original game could have been improved upon, but not by very much due to the limitations of the engine used, many people soon forgot this though as GTA3 was released as the developers listened to what people wanted and waited until the right hardware was available, but are developers wasting valuable time on other aspects and not on make the game vary as much as possible to keep the gamer coming back?, it’s a question that will be debated a lot, some may say that certain games don’t need much variation, when the truth is they do , and others will say a game needs a lot more variation, its becoming more and more regular as more developers are realising that games need to have fresh and new ideas to make the gamer keep coming back, it could be sub games, it could be multiplayer games or it could be different gameplay elements which are implemented. The word ‘fun’ also plays a big part too, older games may not have had much variation but they were fun, but are today’s games leaving the fun factor out? Well if GTA3 is anything to go by then no, but imagine if in GTA3 you played the part of the cops, would you enjoy it as much? Nope thought not, it’s the whole thought of you play which counts, it makes it more fun being a criminal than being the guys that stop them, so variation is seen from two points of view like most things are, the good and the bad (as mentioned above), old classics like pong and space invaders may not have had much variation but they were so addictive and fun to play, we still need games like that once in a while, because to much variation may stray away from the whole point of the game, as long as the main point of the game stands out and its fun to play then we can enjoy a lot of years with great new games.
How do we define Variation? It simply means to modify something, basically improving on the ideas you already have, but do developers make note of the definition? Well yes and no. Many games these days are criticised for their lack of variation, because as well all know we don’t want to be doing the same old thing all of the time, we want changes, we want new missions that differ from each other, we want 100+ cars in racing games such as GT3, we want every wrestler in the WWF in the game, but are you personally happy with what current games like Smackdown 3 and GT3 bring us or do you want more? If there is one thing GT3 needs its variable damage, this has be sorely missed from previous GT games, and would make the game so much more real, Smackdown 3 for instance in my opinion needs a little more variation in moves, and then it would be my perfect WWF experience, but which games would be your perfect experience with a little more variation?
New Hardware technology has obviously made a huge impact on the variation, because they allow developers to use massive areas for you to play in, like the massive city in GTA3 and variation in gameplay and graphics, as the new hardware can handle the amount of information that is being shifted around the screen, thus allows for massive genres being mixed together like driving missions and shooting missions both using the same engine with the hardware being able to cope.
The PS2 has created a massive world for GTA3, but with new consoles coming (Xbox and Gamecube) surely the variation is bound to improve, or will it?
The burning question is, do games have enough variation? Or is more needed?
Thanks for Reading
SPiKe2k J
Page: