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~~The Good: "THE GOLDEN TINTINNABULATION OF ITEM ATTAINMENT"~~
It's the **PLING** factor.
You know: like when Sonic collects a golden ring. **PLING**.
Or when a passenger tips you as your yellow cab speeds past another vehicle on Crazy Taxi. **PLING**.
In an adventure game, for instance, there's hardly anything worse than after pain-staking exploration, you discover a secret or special item and it just gets silently sucked into your inventory without nothing as much as a PING.
My personal favourite is in Shenmue when Ryo obtains an important item and its arrival is greeted with a kind of windbell **WHOOOSH**.
Sound recognition of item attainment. It's sweet. It's likable. It's like a magical cash register. It's good.
~~The Bad: "FALLING OFF THE EDGE OF THE WORLD"~~
It's a curiously bad thing that can happen in many third person adventures and platformers.
You know what I'm talking about: there nearly always seems to be a place where the main sprite can slip off the edge of the game's universe and be left sustended in the videogame equivalent of no-man's-land.
I've recently experienced this whilst playing Jet Set Radio.
I mis-timed a jump, fell between a fence and a bridge rail and..... the screen went grey and Beat, the character I was controlling, was left falling into oblivion flapping his arms and legs like a sinking monkey.
Most games have these bugged areas, and when encountered it always brings the game to a grinding halt.
Falling off the edge of a game's world is annoying, but only for a few minutes whilst you begrudgingly reset the console.
So it's bad, but it's not awful, so it ain't ugly.
~~The Ugly: "PAYING TOO MUCH LIP-SERVICE"~~
I could say slow-down.
I could say pop-up.
I could even suggest car roofs with jagged edges.
But for me the ugliest in-game incidental is this: you've arrived at a cut-scene, and the camera zooms into a character's face whilst he or she is talking - when suddenly they finish what they are saying and their lips continue to move for several seconds more.
It might seem trivial but I find seriously bad voice-dubbing deeply off-putting.
I know that these days it's quite rare, but when it does happen, it's ugly - dumba$$ ugly; and this is why it comes top of my in-game incidental sin list.
It's the **PLING** factor.
You know: like when Sonic collects a golden ring. **PLING**.
Or when a passenger tips you as your yellow cab speeds past another vehicle on Crazy Taxi. **PLING**.
In an adventure game, for instance, there's hardly anything worse than after pain-staking exploration, you discover a secret or special item and it just gets silently sucked into your inventory without nothing as much as a PING.
My personal favourite is in Shenmue when Ryo obtains an important item and its arrival is greeted with a kind of windbell **WHOOOSH**.
Sound recognition of item attainment. It's sweet. It's likable. It's like a magical cash register. It's good.
~~The Bad: "FALLING OFF THE EDGE OF THE WORLD"~~
It's a curiously bad thing that can happen in many third person adventures and platformers.
You know what I'm talking about: there nearly always seems to be a place where the main sprite can slip off the edge of the game's universe and be left sustended in the videogame equivalent of no-man's-land.
I've recently experienced this whilst playing Jet Set Radio.
I mis-timed a jump, fell between a fence and a bridge rail and..... the screen went grey and Beat, the character I was controlling, was left falling into oblivion flapping his arms and legs like a sinking monkey.
Most games have these bugged areas, and when encountered it always brings the game to a grinding halt.
Falling off the edge of a game's world is annoying, but only for a few minutes whilst you begrudgingly reset the console.
So it's bad, but it's not awful, so it ain't ugly.
~~The Ugly: "PAYING TOO MUCH LIP-SERVICE"~~
I could say slow-down.
I could say pop-up.
I could even suggest car roofs with jagged edges.
But for me the ugliest in-game incidental is this: you've arrived at a cut-scene, and the camera zooms into a character's face whilst he or she is talking - when suddenly they finish what they are saying and their lips continue to move for several seconds more.
It might seem trivial but I find seriously bad voice-dubbing deeply off-putting.
I know that these days it's quite rare, but when it does happen, it's ugly - dumba$$ ugly; and this is why it comes top of my in-game incidental sin list.
I'd say that Slowdown and pop up are bad while the no-mans land is ugly.
Once on Conker's Bad Fur Day, In a Caveman V's Raptor multiplayer game I managed to find my way into this no-mans-land.
I was walking in air and I could see the level above me but I couldn't get in. I was stuck all game!
THAT was ugly.
Once on Conker's Bad Fur Day, In a Caveman V's Raptor multiplayer game I managed to find my way into this no-mans-land.
I was walking in air and I could see the level above me but I couldn't get in. I was stuck all game!
THAT was ugly.
"The Golden Tintinnabulation Of Item Attainment"??? - Nomad's been on the magic mushrooms again!
~~The Good: "THE GOLDEN TINTINNABULATION OF ITEM ATTAINMENT"~~
It's the **PLING** factor.
You know: like when Sonic collects a golden ring. **PLING**.
Or when a passenger tips you as your yellow cab speeds past another vehicle on Crazy Taxi. **PLING**.
In an adventure game, for instance, there's hardly anything worse than after pain-staking exploration, you discover a secret or special item and it just gets silently sucked into your inventory without nothing as much as a PING.
My personal favourite is in Shenmue when Ryo obtains an important item and its arrival is greeted with a kind of windbell **WHOOOSH**.
Sound recognition of item attainment. It's sweet. It's likable. It's like a magical cash register. It's good.
~~The Bad: "FALLING OFF THE EDGE OF THE WORLD"~~
It's a curiously bad thing that can happen in many third person adventures and platformers.
You know what I'm talking about: there nearly always seems to be a place where the main sprite can slip off the edge of the game's universe and be left sustended in the videogame equivalent of no-man's-land.
I've recently experienced this whilst playing Jet Set Radio.
I mis-timed a jump, fell between a fence and a bridge rail and..... the screen went grey and Beat, the character I was controlling, was left falling into oblivion flapping his arms and legs like a sinking monkey.
Most games have these bugged areas, and when encountered it always brings the game to a grinding halt.
Falling off the edge of a game's world is annoying, but only for a few minutes whilst you begrudgingly reset the console.
So it's bad, but it's not awful, so it ain't ugly.
~~The Ugly: "PAYING TOO MUCH LIP-SERVICE"~~
I could say slow-down.
I could say pop-up.
I could even suggest car roofs with jagged edges.
But for me the ugliest in-game incidental is this: you've arrived at a cut-scene, and the camera zooms into a character's face whilst he or she is talking - when suddenly they finish what they are saying and their lips continue to move for several seconds more.
It might seem trivial but I find seriously bad voice-dubbing deeply off-putting.
I know that these days it's quite rare, but when it does happen, it's ugly - dumba$$ ugly; and this is why it comes top of my in-game incidental sin list.
It's the **PLING** factor.
You know: like when Sonic collects a golden ring. **PLING**.
Or when a passenger tips you as your yellow cab speeds past another vehicle on Crazy Taxi. **PLING**.
In an adventure game, for instance, there's hardly anything worse than after pain-staking exploration, you discover a secret or special item and it just gets silently sucked into your inventory without nothing as much as a PING.
My personal favourite is in Shenmue when Ryo obtains an important item and its arrival is greeted with a kind of windbell **WHOOOSH**.
Sound recognition of item attainment. It's sweet. It's likable. It's like a magical cash register. It's good.
~~The Bad: "FALLING OFF THE EDGE OF THE WORLD"~~
It's a curiously bad thing that can happen in many third person adventures and platformers.
You know what I'm talking about: there nearly always seems to be a place where the main sprite can slip off the edge of the game's universe and be left sustended in the videogame equivalent of no-man's-land.
I've recently experienced this whilst playing Jet Set Radio.
I mis-timed a jump, fell between a fence and a bridge rail and..... the screen went grey and Beat, the character I was controlling, was left falling into oblivion flapping his arms and legs like a sinking monkey.
Most games have these bugged areas, and when encountered it always brings the game to a grinding halt.
Falling off the edge of a game's world is annoying, but only for a few minutes whilst you begrudgingly reset the console.
So it's bad, but it's not awful, so it ain't ugly.
~~The Ugly: "PAYING TOO MUCH LIP-SERVICE"~~
I could say slow-down.
I could say pop-up.
I could even suggest car roofs with jagged edges.
But for me the ugliest in-game incidental is this: you've arrived at a cut-scene, and the camera zooms into a character's face whilst he or she is talking - when suddenly they finish what they are saying and their lips continue to move for several seconds more.
It might seem trivial but I find seriously bad voice-dubbing deeply off-putting.
I know that these days it's quite rare, but when it does happen, it's ugly - dumba$$ ugly; and this is why it comes top of my in-game incidental sin list.