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Three weeks ago I was happily tripping my way through Half-Life for the second time. I was enjoying blasting my through the alien hordes and all was well. But underneath my enjoyment was a slight boredom, because I knew that however many times I got savaged by a giant fish, minced by a tentacle or burnt by giant Garg, that with just a tap of the magic button, all my health and ammo would be restored and I could have another attempt at defeating them. Yes, Half-Life is plagued with the quick-save.
But what about the novices among us? Those that can’t kill a head crab without blowing themselves up, or who can’t defeat Xan on the easiest setting. Without the quick-save to aid them, these ones could be totally stuck in the river of PC gaming without a paddle. But then if games are designed for novices, the veterans won’t be tested and so won’t really enjoy them. Its a vicious circle.
Thankfully, game developers have put specific thought to this matter, and so evolve games like Max Payne. Max Payne is a prime example of how to balance the dreaded quick-save. On the Fugitive setting there are unlimited quick-saves, but the harder difficulty you choose, the less saves you get. When you reach New York Minute there are no saves, and you also have a time limit.
I think the save method implemented in Max Payne is what we will see in the
future of games; novices and old hands alike are fully catered for. And on the harder difficulty levels you still experience the thrill and tenseness of knowing that you only have x amount of saves to reach the end of the level.
In conclusion, I think the quick-save will survive, but limited strictly so as to bring the fun and enjoyability back into gaming.
Brew
But what about the novices among us? Those that can’t kill a head crab without blowing themselves up, or who can’t defeat Xan on the easiest setting. Without the quick-save to aid them, these ones could be totally stuck in the river of PC gaming without a paddle. But then if games are designed for novices, the veterans won’t be tested and so won’t really enjoy them. Its a vicious circle.
Thankfully, game developers have put specific thought to this matter, and so evolve games like Max Payne. Max Payne is a prime example of how to balance the dreaded quick-save. On the Fugitive setting there are unlimited quick-saves, but the harder difficulty you choose, the less saves you get. When you reach New York Minute there are no saves, and you also have a time limit.
I think the save method implemented in Max Payne is what we will see in the
future of games; novices and old hands alike are fully catered for. And on the harder difficulty levels you still experience the thrill and tenseness of knowing that you only have x amount of saves to reach the end of the level.
In conclusion, I think the quick-save will survive, but limited strictly so as to bring the fun and enjoyability back into gaming.
Brew
Quicksave is a drug.
Too many people use it, but they have a choice as to whether or not they do.
Too many people use it, but they have a choice as to whether or not they do.
There are a few ways around the quicksave problem...here's my favourite
One is autosave. Give the gamer himself no control over when he saves, but only the comfort in knowing that when he quits, his position will be saved. However, his failures are also automatically saved - and when he loses his last life, his saved game file becomes useless. This solves the problem of not being able to sit down at x hours in a row to finish the game, but still stops you having 500 attepts at the same ten second stretch of game.
It's unforgiving maybe, but still shifts the emphasis from the modern day skill of being able to pull of something special once, back to the olden day skill of being able to pull off slightly less impressive feats, with far greater consistency.
Back to the old days. Back to where you had to 'earn' another shot at that difficult bit. If you don't enjoy playing the game back up to that point, surely something is amiss anyway?
One is autosave. Give the gamer himself no control over when he saves, but only the comfort in knowing that when he quits, his position will be saved. However, his failures are also automatically saved - and when he loses his last life, his saved game file becomes useless. This solves the problem of not being able to sit down at x hours in a row to finish the game, but still stops you having 500 attepts at the same ten second stretch of game.
It's unforgiving maybe, but still shifts the emphasis from the modern day skill of being able to pull of something special once, back to the olden day skill of being able to pull off slightly less impressive feats, with far greater consistency.
Back to the old days. Back to where you had to 'earn' another shot at that difficult bit. If you don't enjoy playing the game back up to that point, surely something is amiss anyway?
Saving is a God-send, and it has revolutionised gaming more than anything else.
Without the ability to save, we'd have to start from the start every time, so games couldn't realistically last more than a couple of hours. Mind you, a game like Ghouls and Ghosts took a long time for you to get good enough to get through two hours of play without losing a life!
What I really like about saving whenever you want though, is that it allows for much greater experimentation in games, as basically, you eliminate the risk by allowing the opportunity to reload an old file.
I'm playing an emulated version of Harvest Moon at the moment (well, not this very moment, you know what I mean) anyway, there was a mushroom which looked spotty, clearly different from the others. I wouldn't have tried it, as it looked nasty, but, because of saving, I was able to try it to see what would happen, then reload by old file when my little guy appeared not to like it.
I find myself going into games wondering what would happen if I tried to do different things, as it doesn't matter if I die.
Mind you, if you're playing a game, and saving after every few seconds, you can't really complain that you finished it too quickly, or that it was easy.
And the idea of limiting the amount of saves is not one I like, as strange things can happen. What if you start to play, only to hear a noise outside. You'd have to switch off to incestigate, and waste one of your saves having only progressed a very little. You wouldn't be able to play for just a few minutes either, which isn't a good thing.
Without the ability to save, we'd have to start from the start every time, so games couldn't realistically last more than a couple of hours. Mind you, a game like Ghouls and Ghosts took a long time for you to get good enough to get through two hours of play without losing a life!
What I really like about saving whenever you want though, is that it allows for much greater experimentation in games, as basically, you eliminate the risk by allowing the opportunity to reload an old file.
I'm playing an emulated version of Harvest Moon at the moment (well, not this very moment, you know what I mean) anyway, there was a mushroom which looked spotty, clearly different from the others. I wouldn't have tried it, as it looked nasty, but, because of saving, I was able to try it to see what would happen, then reload by old file when my little guy appeared not to like it.
I find myself going into games wondering what would happen if I tried to do different things, as it doesn't matter if I die.
Mind you, if you're playing a game, and saving after every few seconds, you can't really complain that you finished it too quickly, or that it was easy.
And the idea of limiting the amount of saves is not one I like, as strange things can happen. What if you start to play, only to hear a noise outside. You'd have to switch off to incestigate, and waste one of your saves having only progressed a very little. You wouldn't be able to play for just a few minutes either, which isn't a good thing.
quicksave is a life saver sometimes, but i still consider it to be kind of cheating.
Three weeks ago I was happily tripping my way through Half-Life for the second time. I was enjoying blasting my through the alien hordes and all was well. But underneath my enjoyment was a slight boredom, because I knew that however many times I got savaged by a giant fish, minced by a tentacle or burnt by giant Garg, that with just a tap of the magic button, all my health and ammo would be restored and I could have another attempt at defeating them. Yes, Half-Life is plagued with the quick-save.
But what about the novices among us? Those that can’t kill a head crab without blowing themselves up, or who can’t defeat Xan on the easiest setting. Without the quick-save to aid them, these ones could be totally stuck in the river of PC gaming without a paddle. But then if games are designed for novices, the veterans won’t be tested and so won’t really enjoy them. Its a vicious circle.
Thankfully, game developers have put specific thought to this matter, and so evolve games like Max Payne. Max Payne is a prime example of how to balance the dreaded quick-save. On the Fugitive setting there are unlimited quick-saves, but the harder difficulty you choose, the less saves you get. When you reach New York Minute there are no saves, and you also have a time limit.
I think the save method implemented in Max Payne is what we will see in the
future of games; novices and old hands alike are fully catered for. And on the harder difficulty levels you still experience the thrill and tenseness of knowing that you only have x amount of saves to reach the end of the level.
In conclusion, I think the quick-save will survive, but limited strictly so as to bring the fun and enjoyability back into gaming.
Brew
But what about the novices among us? Those that can’t kill a head crab without blowing themselves up, or who can’t defeat Xan on the easiest setting. Without the quick-save to aid them, these ones could be totally stuck in the river of PC gaming without a paddle. But then if games are designed for novices, the veterans won’t be tested and so won’t really enjoy them. Its a vicious circle.
Thankfully, game developers have put specific thought to this matter, and so evolve games like Max Payne. Max Payne is a prime example of how to balance the dreaded quick-save. On the Fugitive setting there are unlimited quick-saves, but the harder difficulty you choose, the less saves you get. When you reach New York Minute there are no saves, and you also have a time limit.
I think the save method implemented in Max Payne is what we will see in the
future of games; novices and old hands alike are fully catered for. And on the harder difficulty levels you still experience the thrill and tenseness of knowing that you only have x amount of saves to reach the end of the level.
In conclusion, I think the quick-save will survive, but limited strictly so as to bring the fun and enjoyability back into gaming.
Brew