We often talk about the negatives in modern day games, the bad habits developing in design and how old games were superiour in ways and that is indeed often the case.
Thought it could be fun to think of some of the positive or smart progressions that have been made in general game design and approach. I for one have appreciated such changes in many cases. Ofcourse not all games have caught on to these positive progressions.
I'm not talking about improved graphics, art, sound ect. Those things are a given as technology has advanced. More so the design elements such as interfaces, gameplay ect where developers have taken some intiative to improve exeriences.
Keep in mind that these are just generalised comments and ofcourse there are also some well implemented and intentional examples of modern game using older design principles.
I?ll get the ball rolling.
Saving/Checkpoints ? Game developers have come to relise that sparsely placed checkpoints or save points are not an acceptable way to artificially increase difficulty but typically increases frustration and repetition and how long your bladder/nerves has to hold out. Some systems have even resulting in getting stuck to the point of needed to restart the game from scratch. Looking at you Resident Evil and it?s ribbon/typewriter system.
Feel saving is handled a lot better these days and treated as more of an invisible necessity than an actual game-play mechanic to strive for.
There are generally many more chances to save your game or more instances allowing on the fly saving ? less so in consoles which have traditionally relied on save point systems. All in all it?s fairer typically. Even though a lot of games still have auto-saves only after an entire mission is completed for instance - have implemented it will enough that it?s not as frustrating as perhaps it once could have been and suits the style of the game.
Online FPS scoring ? Once was a time when it was all about frags. It?s good now that you can be rewarded for kill assists and heavily reward for achieving objectives for instance. Still quite a flawed system which doesn?t recognise a lot of player?s contributions and achievements to the team and still open to exploits but an improvement on where we were with say the original TFC or counter strikes which were both mega-popular online FPS for example.
As I say there are exceptions but what do you think. Are games doing some things smarter now? What are your own examples. Agree with mine? I will add more later.
Cheers
Thought it could be fun to think of some of the positive or smart progressions that have been made in general game design and approach. I for one have appreciated such changes in many cases. Ofcourse not all games have caught on to these positive progressions.
I'm not talking about improved graphics, art, sound ect. Those things are a given as technology has advanced. More so the design elements such as interfaces, gameplay ect where developers have taken some intiative to improve exeriences.
Keep in mind that these are just generalised comments and ofcourse there are also some well implemented and intentional examples of modern game using older design principles.
I?ll get the ball rolling.
Saving/Checkpoints ? Game developers have come to relise that sparsely placed checkpoints or save points are not an acceptable way to artificially increase difficulty but typically increases frustration and repetition and how long your bladder/nerves has to hold out. Some systems have even resulting in getting stuck to the point of needed to restart the game from scratch. Looking at you Resident Evil and it?s ribbon/typewriter system.
Feel saving is handled a lot better these days and treated as more of an invisible necessity than an actual game-play mechanic to strive for.
There are generally many more chances to save your game or more instances allowing on the fly saving ? less so in consoles which have traditionally relied on save point systems. All in all it?s fairer typically. Even though a lot of games still have auto-saves only after an entire mission is completed for instance - have implemented it will enough that it?s not as frustrating as perhaps it once could have been and suits the style of the game.
Online FPS scoring ? Once was a time when it was all about frags. It?s good now that you can be rewarded for kill assists and heavily reward for achieving objectives for instance. Still quite a flawed system which doesn?t recognise a lot of player?s contributions and achievements to the team and still open to exploits but an improvement on where we were with say the original TFC or counter strikes which were both mega-popular online FPS for example.
As I say there are exceptions but what do you think. Are games doing some things smarter now? What are your own examples. Agree with mine? I will add more later.
Cheers
