I've noticed a number of "things they need to stop doing in games" discussions lately (not all here, mind you, I just found a bunch of old articles recently and the like). So, as a small change of pace and a chance to stand on my soapbox for a bit, I'm going to discuss things they need to start doing.
1) Fully customizable controls
They don't have to take this to a ridiculous degree, I just want them to adopt the method fighting games use--the one where each command is listed with the corresponding button(s) and you can change what that button is. It seems really minor, but play two similar games with noticably different control schemes and you'll wish they did this. I tried to play some Saint's Row 2 the other night and killed like three people trying to change my gun (the melee button in SR2 was the same as the change weapon button in another game I had been playing). I realize killing three people in Saint's Row isbasically just a typical Tuesday night for my character, but I wanted to illustrate my point with a recent example. I am aware that this is the case with a PC game, but console games need to do this.
2) Custom difficulty
(This one's a little long, the most important part is the second paragraph)
A little while ago, I was playing a Company of Heroes mod called "Afrika Korps" and for some reason the computer just threw Stormtroopers at me. He would upgrade them--I lost several light vehicles to his Panzershcrecks--but once he unlocked his Stormtroopers he quit building anything else, and what he had left over where allowed to die without being replaced. This may sound frustrating, but I actually had a great deal of fun with it. I built needlessly complex defense networks and laughed maniacally as Germany's best footsoldiers struggled to get past my array of snipers, mortar teams, and machine guns (one of my snipers got over 70 kills). Later, I found myself in the mood to try that again, this time limiting myself to use no vehicles, but shortly into the game he brought out a Puma and I was forced to rearrange my whole army. And I thought, "what if I could make him use infantry only?"
My dream of custom difficulty was actually realized a long time ago, back in Goldeneye for the N64, (007 difficulty) but I've never seen it again. And when I say "custom," I mean adjusting what enemies you'll fight, how good their aim is, how much damage they do, everything. Goldeneye did this brilliantly--the game could go from so easy you didn't need to fire any shots to beat the level (barring parts where "kill this guy" was the objective) to so hard that you would need cheat codes just to stand a chance (enemies with maximum accuracy were incapable of missing you). In particular, I would very much like it if you could control how smart the enemy AI is, and what units/weapons/skills/whatever he can use. I'm honestly quite curious to see what an Expert-level Ai from Company of Heroes can do with nothing but Riflemen, Greyhounds, and M4 Shermans (probably still manage to destroy me). I would also like to be able to adjust what handicaps each player/AI gets. Things like that.
3) Skippable cutscenes
Self-explanatory. Half the reason I haven't played Metal Gear Solid 4 is that I don't want to sit through all the damn cutscenes (especially since I haven't played the other games, and the cutscenes would therefore mean little to me). I suppose that Paul and Grant would have to change the name of the series to something like "We Could Skip It, But We Won't" but that's a small sacrifice. So long as they keep making videos, anyway.
4) Artistic Touches
Remember how in Fallout 3, when your character sees the sun for the first time in their life, the momentary blindness actually effected you at the time? Or how the enemies in Silent Hill are all based on the insecurities of the character? Wasn't that awesome? The main thing keeping games from being fully embraced as art is that the industry isn't trying hard enough to change it (that and some people won't accept anything new as art, but fuck those people). There's a game called Heavy Rain coming out at some point or another that might change this (the whole thing is more like an interactive story than a normal game), but until it loaunches we won't know how much of that is really happening and how much is just hype. I will concede that enjoyability is the most important aspect, but that's no reason we have to ignore the potential of an interactive medium. BioShock used the expectations we have of a game to present questions about free will, to impressive effect, so hopefully that will become something of a trend.
5) Make Life Easy For the Modders
One of the big strengths of the firt Dawn of War series was that it was fairly easy to mod, or so I'm told (I don't have nearly the skill necessary to mod a game). Team Fortress and Counter-Strike, two of the biggest online games ever, both started out as mods. And since "there are some great mods for it" might serve as incentive to buy a game, it only makes sense that developers make the game fairly easy to mod. This is a fairly minor one, but it would be nice.
I have some other comments on the industry as a whole, but they would be rather more negative than this, so perhaps I will save those for another time. I would just like to applaud Valve, by the way, for being so good about the last two (they made life a lot easier for the Team Fortress guys in particular). So, I guess this is the part where I invite comments and observations from the rest of you, so have at it.
1) Fully customizable controls
They don't have to take this to a ridiculous degree, I just want them to adopt the method fighting games use--the one where each command is listed with the corresponding button(s) and you can change what that button is. It seems really minor, but play two similar games with noticably different control schemes and you'll wish they did this. I tried to play some Saint's Row 2 the other night and killed like three people trying to change my gun (the melee button in SR2 was the same as the change weapon button in another game I had been playing). I realize killing three people in Saint's Row isbasically just a typical Tuesday night for my character, but I wanted to illustrate my point with a recent example. I am aware that this is the case with a PC game, but console games need to do this.
2) Custom difficulty
(This one's a little long, the most important part is the second paragraph)
A little while ago, I was playing a Company of Heroes mod called "Afrika Korps" and for some reason the computer just threw Stormtroopers at me. He would upgrade them--I lost several light vehicles to his Panzershcrecks--but once he unlocked his Stormtroopers he quit building anything else, and what he had left over where allowed to die without being replaced. This may sound frustrating, but I actually had a great deal of fun with it. I built needlessly complex defense networks and laughed maniacally as Germany's best footsoldiers struggled to get past my array of snipers, mortar teams, and machine guns (one of my snipers got over 70 kills). Later, I found myself in the mood to try that again, this time limiting myself to use no vehicles, but shortly into the game he brought out a Puma and I was forced to rearrange my whole army. And I thought, "what if I could make him use infantry only?"
My dream of custom difficulty was actually realized a long time ago, back in Goldeneye for the N64, (007 difficulty) but I've never seen it again. And when I say "custom," I mean adjusting what enemies you'll fight, how good their aim is, how much damage they do, everything. Goldeneye did this brilliantly--the game could go from so easy you didn't need to fire any shots to beat the level (barring parts where "kill this guy" was the objective) to so hard that you would need cheat codes just to stand a chance (enemies with maximum accuracy were incapable of missing you). In particular, I would very much like it if you could control how smart the enemy AI is, and what units/weapons/skills/whatever he can use. I'm honestly quite curious to see what an Expert-level Ai from Company of Heroes can do with nothing but Riflemen, Greyhounds, and M4 Shermans (probably still manage to destroy me). I would also like to be able to adjust what handicaps each player/AI gets. Things like that.
3) Skippable cutscenes
Self-explanatory. Half the reason I haven't played Metal Gear Solid 4 is that I don't want to sit through all the damn cutscenes (especially since I haven't played the other games, and the cutscenes would therefore mean little to me). I suppose that Paul and Grant would have to change the name of the series to something like "We Could Skip It, But We Won't" but that's a small sacrifice. So long as they keep making videos, anyway.
4) Artistic Touches
Remember how in Fallout 3, when your character sees the sun for the first time in their life, the momentary blindness actually effected you at the time? Or how the enemies in Silent Hill are all based on the insecurities of the character? Wasn't that awesome? The main thing keeping games from being fully embraced as art is that the industry isn't trying hard enough to change it (that and some people won't accept anything new as art, but fuck those people). There's a game called Heavy Rain coming out at some point or another that might change this (the whole thing is more like an interactive story than a normal game), but until it loaunches we won't know how much of that is really happening and how much is just hype. I will concede that enjoyability is the most important aspect, but that's no reason we have to ignore the potential of an interactive medium. BioShock used the expectations we have of a game to present questions about free will, to impressive effect, so hopefully that will become something of a trend.
5) Make Life Easy For the Modders
One of the big strengths of the firt Dawn of War series was that it was fairly easy to mod, or so I'm told (I don't have nearly the skill necessary to mod a game). Team Fortress and Counter-Strike, two of the biggest online games ever, both started out as mods. And since "there are some great mods for it" might serve as incentive to buy a game, it only makes sense that developers make the game fairly easy to mod. This is a fairly minor one, but it would be nice.
I have some other comments on the industry as a whole, but they would be rather more negative than this, so perhaps I will save those for another time. I would just like to applaud Valve, by the way, for being so good about the last two (they made life a lot easier for the Team Fortress guys in particular). So, I guess this is the part where I invite comments and observations from the rest of you, so have at it.
