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I’m sure we’ve all seen the films where the hero is faced with overwhelming odds, and under that immense pressure they come up with a seemingly suicidal plan that might just work. And usually does.
There’s nothing quite like the feeling of being the underdog. Being faced with odds so ridiculous most people would have packed their bags and ran screaming long ago. But too often in gaming this isn’t included. Developers may want a game that’s not too hard so more people can complete it and then feel good about the game because it wasn’t too frustrating to win.
But isn’t the frustration, the difficulty of a game, what gives us a sense of achievement when we win? I felt much better when I won Jet Force Gemini with it’s huge, almost retro stylee, screen filling bosses than when I won Mario 64 with an admittedly large Bowser, but a battle that wasn’t all that inspired. I think I beat Bowser on the first, maybe second attempt. I was stuck on the Jet Force Gemini final boss for months.
But I’m not necessarily saying these overwhelming odds need to be particularly difficult. The whole point of these in films is usually that the hero comes up with a last ditch plan. I’m sure everyone remembers the Control Room from Goldeneye where you had to protect Natalya from hordes of incoming guards. That was a tough section. But imagine if there was something you could do to even the odds. For example, if you saved some mines from earlier on in the mission, you could use them to blow up the stairs down to the computers so enemies would have to shoot from the ‘balcony’ area. Or if you could move some of the desks around to form crude barricades. These wouldn’t detract from the scale of the battle, they’d just allow you to even the odds, and be more creative.
You may think this is just the same old non-linearity rant, but I’ve nothing against linear games. You could have an incredibly linear level in a game which only allows one path to be taken, but that doesn’t stop the developer from putting in plenty of things to aid the player into the level.
At it’s most basic, we’ve seen this with crates and barrels that the player can blow up to send nearby enemies flying and frying in equal measures. But I want more. I want to be on my last sliver of health with a squad of enemies running at me and see a pipe running along the corridor. I want to shoot the pipe and burning hot steam at high pressure bursts out onto my attackers. I want to wander into a lab and see an experiment with a big electromagnet that I can turn on so all the enemies guns fly onto the magnet, or even better, they can keep hold of their guns, but they try to shoot me and all their bullets just head for the magnet, leaving me to whack them round the head with the but of my pistol.
This isn’t making the game any less linear in terms of where you can go and what you can see, but it would be less linear in terms of how you do something, and make much more use of the environment in which you find yourself. I think it would also give the player additional incentive to go back and play a level again, to see if they can find any new and fun ways to overcome the odds.
I suppose these have been used to an extent in some games. But in my experience they are often too obscure and not used enough, or the player is spoon fed the opportunities to use them (007: Agent Under Fire take note). It’s no fun when the game tells you with big green circles that this item can be used to help you kill some enemies, you want to discover it yourself.
Basically, I want the overwhelming odds, and I also want the means to beat them. Not always easily, but neither does it have to be incredibly hard all the time. I just crave that moment when you get a last ditch plan for all or nothing and go for it.
Thanks for reading!
There’s nothing quite like the feeling of being the underdog. Being faced with odds so ridiculous most people would have packed their bags and ran screaming long ago. But too often in gaming this isn’t included. Developers may want a game that’s not too hard so more people can complete it and then feel good about the game because it wasn’t too frustrating to win.
But isn’t the frustration, the difficulty of a game, what gives us a sense of achievement when we win? I felt much better when I won Jet Force Gemini with it’s huge, almost retro stylee, screen filling bosses than when I won Mario 64 with an admittedly large Bowser, but a battle that wasn’t all that inspired. I think I beat Bowser on the first, maybe second attempt. I was stuck on the Jet Force Gemini final boss for months.
But I’m not necessarily saying these overwhelming odds need to be particularly difficult. The whole point of these in films is usually that the hero comes up with a last ditch plan. I’m sure everyone remembers the Control Room from Goldeneye where you had to protect Natalya from hordes of incoming guards. That was a tough section. But imagine if there was something you could do to even the odds. For example, if you saved some mines from earlier on in the mission, you could use them to blow up the stairs down to the computers so enemies would have to shoot from the ‘balcony’ area. Or if you could move some of the desks around to form crude barricades. These wouldn’t detract from the scale of the battle, they’d just allow you to even the odds, and be more creative.
You may think this is just the same old non-linearity rant, but I’ve nothing against linear games. You could have an incredibly linear level in a game which only allows one path to be taken, but that doesn’t stop the developer from putting in plenty of things to aid the player into the level.
At it’s most basic, we’ve seen this with crates and barrels that the player can blow up to send nearby enemies flying and frying in equal measures. But I want more. I want to be on my last sliver of health with a squad of enemies running at me and see a pipe running along the corridor. I want to shoot the pipe and burning hot steam at high pressure bursts out onto my attackers. I want to wander into a lab and see an experiment with a big electromagnet that I can turn on so all the enemies guns fly onto the magnet, or even better, they can keep hold of their guns, but they try to shoot me and all their bullets just head for the magnet, leaving me to whack them round the head with the but of my pistol.
This isn’t making the game any less linear in terms of where you can go and what you can see, but it would be less linear in terms of how you do something, and make much more use of the environment in which you find yourself. I think it would also give the player additional incentive to go back and play a level again, to see if they can find any new and fun ways to overcome the odds.
I suppose these have been used to an extent in some games. But in my experience they are often too obscure and not used enough, or the player is spoon fed the opportunities to use them (007: Agent Under Fire take note). It’s no fun when the game tells you with big green circles that this item can be used to help you kill some enemies, you want to discover it yourself.
Basically, I want the overwhelming odds, and I also want the means to beat them. Not always easily, but neither does it have to be incredibly hard all the time. I just crave that moment when you get a last ditch plan for all or nothing and go for it.
Thanks for reading!
Complete freedom is a hard thing to put into a game, I can think in my head of FPS where you can shoot the pipes to let steam come out but only in certain sections, ones where you probably have to do it which is no good, being able to do it all the time would make everything so much more interesting. I'm with you, I like the idea of being able to move the scenery or nearby objects around to create barriers, this kind of interactivity is hard to do. I remember Perfect Dark boasting about real time lighting, which is all fine and dandy but I can't remember it actually making a difference, the enemies would still shoot like they always have withouth it affecting their vision in the slightest.
That control room level was a right *****! :)
Also what would help (in certain situations) would be a level with one goal, one big goal to achieve, escape the area, rescue the prisoner or blow the building. A level with much more freedom, where by you can't fail tasks before and have to start over, you could attempt it a thousand different ways, kind of like how you could infiltrate buildings in Rainbow Six. Freedom where you could attempt it one way, fail, re-group now with maybe the alarm raised (which didn't end the mission) which adds to how yo must go about your task would be a real achievement.
Nice post.
That control room level was a right *****! :)
Also what would help (in certain situations) would be a level with one goal, one big goal to achieve, escape the area, rescue the prisoner or blow the building. A level with much more freedom, where by you can't fail tasks before and have to start over, you could attempt it a thousand different ways, kind of like how you could infiltrate buildings in Rainbow Six. Freedom where you could attempt it one way, fail, re-group now with maybe the alarm raised (which didn't end the mission) which adds to how yo must go about your task would be a real achievement.
Nice post.
I’m sure we’ve all seen the films where the hero is faced with overwhelming odds, and under that immense pressure they come up with a seemingly suicidal plan that might just work. And usually does.
There’s nothing quite like the feeling of being the underdog. Being faced with odds so ridiculous most people would have packed their bags and ran screaming long ago. But too often in gaming this isn’t included. Developers may want a game that’s not too hard so more people can complete it and then feel good about the game because it wasn’t too frustrating to win.
But isn’t the frustration, the difficulty of a game, what gives us a sense of achievement when we win? I felt much better when I won Jet Force Gemini with it’s huge, almost retro stylee, screen filling bosses than when I won Mario 64 with an admittedly large Bowser, but a battle that wasn’t all that inspired. I think I beat Bowser on the first, maybe second attempt. I was stuck on the Jet Force Gemini final boss for months.
But I’m not necessarily saying these overwhelming odds need to be particularly difficult. The whole point of these in films is usually that the hero comes up with a last ditch plan. I’m sure everyone remembers the Control Room from Goldeneye where you had to protect Natalya from hordes of incoming guards. That was a tough section. But imagine if there was something you could do to even the odds. For example, if you saved some mines from earlier on in the mission, you could use them to blow up the stairs down to the computers so enemies would have to shoot from the ‘balcony’ area. Or if you could move some of the desks around to form crude barricades. These wouldn’t detract from the scale of the battle, they’d just allow you to even the odds, and be more creative.
You may think this is just the same old non-linearity rant, but I’ve nothing against linear games. You could have an incredibly linear level in a game which only allows one path to be taken, but that doesn’t stop the developer from putting in plenty of things to aid the player into the level.
At it’s most basic, we’ve seen this with crates and barrels that the player can blow up to send nearby enemies flying and frying in equal measures. But I want more. I want to be on my last sliver of health with a squad of enemies running at me and see a pipe running along the corridor. I want to shoot the pipe and burning hot steam at high pressure bursts out onto my attackers. I want to wander into a lab and see an experiment with a big electromagnet that I can turn on so all the enemies guns fly onto the magnet, or even better, they can keep hold of their guns, but they try to shoot me and all their bullets just head for the magnet, leaving me to whack them round the head with the but of my pistol.
This isn’t making the game any less linear in terms of where you can go and what you can see, but it would be less linear in terms of how you do something, and make much more use of the environment in which you find yourself. I think it would also give the player additional incentive to go back and play a level again, to see if they can find any new and fun ways to overcome the odds.
I suppose these have been used to an extent in some games. But in my experience they are often too obscure and not used enough, or the player is spoon fed the opportunities to use them (007: Agent Under Fire take note). It’s no fun when the game tells you with big green circles that this item can be used to help you kill some enemies, you want to discover it yourself.
Basically, I want the overwhelming odds, and I also want the means to beat them. Not always easily, but neither does it have to be incredibly hard all the time. I just crave that moment when you get a last ditch plan for all or nothing and go for it.
Thanks for reading!
There’s nothing quite like the feeling of being the underdog. Being faced with odds so ridiculous most people would have packed their bags and ran screaming long ago. But too often in gaming this isn’t included. Developers may want a game that’s not too hard so more people can complete it and then feel good about the game because it wasn’t too frustrating to win.
But isn’t the frustration, the difficulty of a game, what gives us a sense of achievement when we win? I felt much better when I won Jet Force Gemini with it’s huge, almost retro stylee, screen filling bosses than when I won Mario 64 with an admittedly large Bowser, but a battle that wasn’t all that inspired. I think I beat Bowser on the first, maybe second attempt. I was stuck on the Jet Force Gemini final boss for months.
But I’m not necessarily saying these overwhelming odds need to be particularly difficult. The whole point of these in films is usually that the hero comes up with a last ditch plan. I’m sure everyone remembers the Control Room from Goldeneye where you had to protect Natalya from hordes of incoming guards. That was a tough section. But imagine if there was something you could do to even the odds. For example, if you saved some mines from earlier on in the mission, you could use them to blow up the stairs down to the computers so enemies would have to shoot from the ‘balcony’ area. Or if you could move some of the desks around to form crude barricades. These wouldn’t detract from the scale of the battle, they’d just allow you to even the odds, and be more creative.
You may think this is just the same old non-linearity rant, but I’ve nothing against linear games. You could have an incredibly linear level in a game which only allows one path to be taken, but that doesn’t stop the developer from putting in plenty of things to aid the player into the level.
At it’s most basic, we’ve seen this with crates and barrels that the player can blow up to send nearby enemies flying and frying in equal measures. But I want more. I want to be on my last sliver of health with a squad of enemies running at me and see a pipe running along the corridor. I want to shoot the pipe and burning hot steam at high pressure bursts out onto my attackers. I want to wander into a lab and see an experiment with a big electromagnet that I can turn on so all the enemies guns fly onto the magnet, or even better, they can keep hold of their guns, but they try to shoot me and all their bullets just head for the magnet, leaving me to whack them round the head with the but of my pistol.
This isn’t making the game any less linear in terms of where you can go and what you can see, but it would be less linear in terms of how you do something, and make much more use of the environment in which you find yourself. I think it would also give the player additional incentive to go back and play a level again, to see if they can find any new and fun ways to overcome the odds.
I suppose these have been used to an extent in some games. But in my experience they are often too obscure and not used enough, or the player is spoon fed the opportunities to use them (007: Agent Under Fire take note). It’s no fun when the game tells you with big green circles that this item can be used to help you kill some enemies, you want to discover it yourself.
Basically, I want the overwhelming odds, and I also want the means to beat them. Not always easily, but neither does it have to be incredibly hard all the time. I just crave that moment when you get a last ditch plan for all or nothing and go for it.
Thanks for reading!