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Playing Britney's Dance Beat today got me thinking. When you play games, it's not just to demonstrate your gaming prowess, you want to get something back. Nowadays this is most common in the form of an FMV sequence or new unlockable features (Resident Evil cut scenes/extra weapons and new tracks in TOCA spring to mind as good examples).
But there's a kind of balance, and developers have to be careful to get that balance right. 'Z', for example on the Playstation. This was a really good game except for one thing, the amount of work you had to do to get the crackingly good and extremely funny FMV sections between levels was just too much. The game was too hard, the loading times were awful, the interface was just too difficult to get to grips with. The FMVs themselves were the only thing that kept me playing.
Britney's Dance Beat on the other hand has got the balance just right. Rack up enough points and you unlock one of her videos. Nice challenge, nice reward (although the game is a bit short for my tastes but I'm sure younger players will think it's the bee's knees).
RPGs are very testing in the challenge vs reward stakes. Some say the reward is being able to make your characters stronger, others say the reward is moving on with the storyline, Final Fantasy X manages to do both quite adequately as well as throw in many a cut scene too. An abundance of rewards for very little work you might say, which makes it one of the best value games I can think of at present. GTA3 would be another game where sheer gameplay is reward enough in itself, there aren't that many cutscenes, but the amount of things to do and see is in itself rewarding once you start doing them and seeing them.
But there have been some real disasters too. Anyone ever play the original Army Men? Very short, very sweet, but the only real reward was a screenshot of a Green Plastic soldier standing on a kitchen counter. And that's it. The new Army Men: RTS that's just been released on the PS2 has done a great deal to rectify this, I've only been playing 30 minutes and already I'm Martin Sheen travelling into enemy territory to take out a Colonel who's lost his mind and loving every sight, sound and the smell of napalm in the morning. (They've made a kind of tribute to Francis Ford Coppola's 'Apocalypse Now' by running a parallel storyline but with plastic soldiers).
So it seems that challenge vs. reward has come a long way since gaming began. Some games of course need no recourse to providing rewards as the gameplay is in itself rewarding. Take Cannon Fodder on the PC, pure gameplay all the way, take Mickey Mouse's Castle of Illusion on the MegaDrive, great platforming, take Lemmings on the Amiga, sheer addictiveness, and then of course there's Tetris, where hi-score is the only thing keeping you going, and finally the Unreal Tournament and other shooters, where the only reward is seeing your opponent die due to your excellent hand-eye coordination.
Is it a case that where gameplay is lacking the developer needs to provide something between levels to carry you on? Or is it a case where gamers themselves find different rewards from different types of games, resulting in some shunning RPGs and others flocking too them? I think the latter is probably the case, hence why some gamers 'specialise' purely in racing games, others in sims, others in shooters, others in RTS, others in shock-horror and so on.
The most rewarding game out there at present? For me it has to be Final Fantasy X.
But there's a kind of balance, and developers have to be careful to get that balance right. 'Z', for example on the Playstation. This was a really good game except for one thing, the amount of work you had to do to get the crackingly good and extremely funny FMV sections between levels was just too much. The game was too hard, the loading times were awful, the interface was just too difficult to get to grips with. The FMVs themselves were the only thing that kept me playing.
Britney's Dance Beat on the other hand has got the balance just right. Rack up enough points and you unlock one of her videos. Nice challenge, nice reward (although the game is a bit short for my tastes but I'm sure younger players will think it's the bee's knees).
RPGs are very testing in the challenge vs reward stakes. Some say the reward is being able to make your characters stronger, others say the reward is moving on with the storyline, Final Fantasy X manages to do both quite adequately as well as throw in many a cut scene too. An abundance of rewards for very little work you might say, which makes it one of the best value games I can think of at present. GTA3 would be another game where sheer gameplay is reward enough in itself, there aren't that many cutscenes, but the amount of things to do and see is in itself rewarding once you start doing them and seeing them.
But there have been some real disasters too. Anyone ever play the original Army Men? Very short, very sweet, but the only real reward was a screenshot of a Green Plastic soldier standing on a kitchen counter. And that's it. The new Army Men: RTS that's just been released on the PS2 has done a great deal to rectify this, I've only been playing 30 minutes and already I'm Martin Sheen travelling into enemy territory to take out a Colonel who's lost his mind and loving every sight, sound and the smell of napalm in the morning. (They've made a kind of tribute to Francis Ford Coppola's 'Apocalypse Now' by running a parallel storyline but with plastic soldiers).
So it seems that challenge vs. reward has come a long way since gaming began. Some games of course need no recourse to providing rewards as the gameplay is in itself rewarding. Take Cannon Fodder on the PC, pure gameplay all the way, take Mickey Mouse's Castle of Illusion on the MegaDrive, great platforming, take Lemmings on the Amiga, sheer addictiveness, and then of course there's Tetris, where hi-score is the only thing keeping you going, and finally the Unreal Tournament and other shooters, where the only reward is seeing your opponent die due to your excellent hand-eye coordination.
Is it a case that where gameplay is lacking the developer needs to provide something between levels to carry you on? Or is it a case where gamers themselves find different rewards from different types of games, resulting in some shunning RPGs and others flocking too them? I think the latter is probably the case, hence why some gamers 'specialise' purely in racing games, others in sims, others in shooters, others in RTS, others in shock-horror and so on.
The most rewarding game out there at present? For me it has to be Final Fantasy X.
State of Emergency.... that game required so much hard work. It got repetitive, but I'd play it every now and again, after having not played it in a while. Finally when I did complete it I got a 2 minute video clip of the area I was liberating being destroyed... Then I got a box of text telling me "Congratulations". I pressed X, it saved and that was it. Nothing more... complete disappointment, what with that cool ending for GTA3. I felt like I'd done something and been rewarded in a way. Maria getting shot made me laugh.... and that final level was challenging... very challenging - it took me ages to do. In this, the final level involved getting a rocket launcher, running to an area full of enemies, shooting 5 rockets at 5 buildings, with no room for missing, whilst being attacked by some angry guards that slaughtered your armed men, and then you had to deal with one by one with a few punches, and a few blasts of dropped weapons. Okay it was a bit hard, but it was exactly like most of the other missions I had played. Nothing refreshingly different - just the same. It wasn't exactly hard either... I completed it within 5 goes.. GTA3 took me around 50 goes to complete the last level because you had to get every bit of it perfected..
I have been playing SimTower and SimCity 3000 recently.
Both great, addictive and challenging games, though the main goal is to not get too much in debt and get chucked out of office the goals are ultimatly set by yourself, which makes them both classics. And the only reward s your own sense of self satisfaction.
A bit like lego from my younger days....
Both great, addictive and challenging games, though the main goal is to not get too much in debt and get chucked out of office the goals are ultimatly set by yourself, which makes them both classics. And the only reward s your own sense of self satisfaction.
A bit like lego from my younger days....
Tony Hawks the first had this you would get money and you could improve in the game as well as getting better and unlocking videos. Another one is espn winter x games 2 i think this is great as you get better the more you practise, its hard to explain but ti is a quality game.
Playing Britney's Dance Beat today got me thinking. When you play games, it's not just to demonstrate your gaming prowess, you want to get something back. Nowadays this is most common in the form of an FMV sequence or new unlockable features (Resident Evil cut scenes/extra weapons and new tracks in TOCA spring to mind as good examples).
But there's a kind of balance, and developers have to be careful to get that balance right. 'Z', for example on the Playstation. This was a really good game except for one thing, the amount of work you had to do to get the crackingly good and extremely funny FMV sections between levels was just too much. The game was too hard, the loading times were awful, the interface was just too difficult to get to grips with. The FMVs themselves were the only thing that kept me playing.
Britney's Dance Beat on the other hand has got the balance just right. Rack up enough points and you unlock one of her videos. Nice challenge, nice reward (although the game is a bit short for my tastes but I'm sure younger players will think it's the bee's knees).
RPGs are very testing in the challenge vs reward stakes. Some say the reward is being able to make your characters stronger, others say the reward is moving on with the storyline, Final Fantasy X manages to do both quite adequately as well as throw in many a cut scene too. An abundance of rewards for very little work you might say, which makes it one of the best value games I can think of at present. GTA3 would be another game where sheer gameplay is reward enough in itself, there aren't that many cutscenes, but the amount of things to do and see is in itself rewarding once you start doing them and seeing them.
But there have been some real disasters too. Anyone ever play the original Army Men? Very short, very sweet, but the only real reward was a screenshot of a Green Plastic soldier standing on a kitchen counter. And that's it. The new Army Men: RTS that's just been released on the PS2 has done a great deal to rectify this, I've only been playing 30 minutes and already I'm Martin Sheen travelling into enemy territory to take out a Colonel who's lost his mind and loving every sight, sound and the smell of napalm in the morning. (They've made a kind of tribute to Francis Ford Coppola's 'Apocalypse Now' by running a parallel storyline but with plastic soldiers).
So it seems that challenge vs. reward has come a long way since gaming began. Some games of course need no recourse to providing rewards as the gameplay is in itself rewarding. Take Cannon Fodder on the PC, pure gameplay all the way, take Mickey Mouse's Castle of Illusion on the MegaDrive, great platforming, take Lemmings on the Amiga, sheer addictiveness, and then of course there's Tetris, where hi-score is the only thing keeping you going, and finally the Unreal Tournament and other shooters, where the only reward is seeing your opponent die due to your excellent hand-eye coordination.
Is it a case that where gameplay is lacking the developer needs to provide something between levels to carry you on? Or is it a case where gamers themselves find different rewards from different types of games, resulting in some shunning RPGs and others flocking too them? I think the latter is probably the case, hence why some gamers 'specialise' purely in racing games, others in sims, others in shooters, others in RTS, others in shock-horror and so on.
The most rewarding game out there at present? For me it has to be Final Fantasy X.
But there's a kind of balance, and developers have to be careful to get that balance right. 'Z', for example on the Playstation. This was a really good game except for one thing, the amount of work you had to do to get the crackingly good and extremely funny FMV sections between levels was just too much. The game was too hard, the loading times were awful, the interface was just too difficult to get to grips with. The FMVs themselves were the only thing that kept me playing.
Britney's Dance Beat on the other hand has got the balance just right. Rack up enough points and you unlock one of her videos. Nice challenge, nice reward (although the game is a bit short for my tastes but I'm sure younger players will think it's the bee's knees).
RPGs are very testing in the challenge vs reward stakes. Some say the reward is being able to make your characters stronger, others say the reward is moving on with the storyline, Final Fantasy X manages to do both quite adequately as well as throw in many a cut scene too. An abundance of rewards for very little work you might say, which makes it one of the best value games I can think of at present. GTA3 would be another game where sheer gameplay is reward enough in itself, there aren't that many cutscenes, but the amount of things to do and see is in itself rewarding once you start doing them and seeing them.
But there have been some real disasters too. Anyone ever play the original Army Men? Very short, very sweet, but the only real reward was a screenshot of a Green Plastic soldier standing on a kitchen counter. And that's it. The new Army Men: RTS that's just been released on the PS2 has done a great deal to rectify this, I've only been playing 30 minutes and already I'm Martin Sheen travelling into enemy territory to take out a Colonel who's lost his mind and loving every sight, sound and the smell of napalm in the morning. (They've made a kind of tribute to Francis Ford Coppola's 'Apocalypse Now' by running a parallel storyline but with plastic soldiers).
So it seems that challenge vs. reward has come a long way since gaming began. Some games of course need no recourse to providing rewards as the gameplay is in itself rewarding. Take Cannon Fodder on the PC, pure gameplay all the way, take Mickey Mouse's Castle of Illusion on the MegaDrive, great platforming, take Lemmings on the Amiga, sheer addictiveness, and then of course there's Tetris, where hi-score is the only thing keeping you going, and finally the Unreal Tournament and other shooters, where the only reward is seeing your opponent die due to your excellent hand-eye coordination.
Is it a case that where gameplay is lacking the developer needs to provide something between levels to carry you on? Or is it a case where gamers themselves find different rewards from different types of games, resulting in some shunning RPGs and others flocking too them? I think the latter is probably the case, hence why some gamers 'specialise' purely in racing games, others in sims, others in shooters, others in RTS, others in shock-horror and so on.
The most rewarding game out there at present? For me it has to be Final Fantasy X.