What features are videogames lacking that you rarely see?
- Thread starter ex275w
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I think there's a lot of emphasis on what is essentially a dead end ("cinematic" games) and not enough emphasis on designing games as systems that produce interesting interactions.
I will now take this opportunity to indulge a personal gripe.
Characters.
A story is only as good as the characters that populate it and 99% of video game developers clearly couldn't create a decent character if their lives depended on it.
Just an ocean of one-note stereotypes, token females and personality-deficient steroid casualties as far as the eye can see.
Characters.
A story is only as good as the characters that populate it and 99% of video game developers clearly couldn't create a decent character if their lives depended on it.
Just an ocean of one-note stereotypes, token females and personality-deficient steroid casualties as far as the eye can see.
Probably wont do anything for the medium but bothers me anyway:
Lack of feet and or reflections in an FPS. NPCs that don't say more than two lines of dialogue,
A change that could really have impact: Aesthetics. Games often try so hard to be graphically "cutting edge" and within a year they look horrible, but if more tried to establish a look beyond words like "fantasy" or "space"
Okami looks like an ink painting. Clover could have just as easily made a realistic wolf in a realistic feudal Japanese setting, but they chose not to.
Lack of feet and or reflections in an FPS. NPCs that don't say more than two lines of dialogue,
A change that could really have impact: Aesthetics. Games often try so hard to be graphically "cutting edge" and within a year they look horrible, but if more tried to establish a look beyond words like "fantasy" or "space"
Okami looks like an ink painting. Clover could have just as easily made a realistic wolf in a realistic feudal Japanese setting, but they chose not to.
Can't speak for consumers since if the future is any indication we have very different expectations from a game.
Flexible and/or strategic combat mechanics coupled with tight controls. Occasionally you get a game like Grandia which could coast almost entirely on its interesting battle system if needed, demonstrating how crucial it is. It almost feels like the genre of fast-paced melee adventure games like DMC are under-saturated at times. Only 3 major ones I can think of, each one set at a different speed, and infinite possibilities for different forms of blocking and attacking.
Elimination of repetitive combat voices. Verbal taunts/messages can be used to clue a player into something, but only for one-time events (like say a Boss gives you a different taunt every time their health is depleted by 25%). Like Yahtzee says, even the best lines in the world lose their charm the 100th time you've heard them unless you're Starfox 64.
Flexible and/or strategic combat mechanics coupled with tight controls. Occasionally you get a game like Grandia which could coast almost entirely on its interesting battle system if needed, demonstrating how crucial it is. It almost feels like the genre of fast-paced melee adventure games like DMC are under-saturated at times. Only 3 major ones I can think of, each one set at a different speed, and infinite possibilities for different forms of blocking and attacking.
Elimination of repetitive combat voices. Verbal taunts/messages can be used to clue a player into something, but only for one-time events (like say a Boss gives you a different taunt every time their health is depleted by 25%). Like Yahtzee says, even the best lines in the world lose their charm the 100th time you've heard them unless you're Starfox 64.
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Fully re-mappable controls. Fuck these developer presets! I'm the consumer, and I know what's comfortable for me than the developer does. If I want the X button to shoot instead of jump, by god, you better make it so that I can assign the shooting function to that button, even if you don't understand why in god's name I would want the controls set up that way.
This! I would especially like to see this in relation to NPCs. NPCs in games nowadays basically function as signposts - you walk up to them and read/hear whatever information they hold. Wouldn't it be cool if characters' relationships with you actually changed dynamically based on the gameplay? RPGs have touched on this before, but I don't think anyone's nailed it yet. Deus Ex: Human Revolution had me excited, because that conversation system was actually pretty cool (the one used in boss fights, not the regular text-tree-style one); however, they only used it about a dozen times throughout the game. Weak.Kahunaburger said:
The Sims did this well, I suppose, but I would like to see this in a narrative game, with dialogue.
You see that gamepad over there? The one with two sticks on it? The poor right stick needs a little more love besides being just camera controls.
Oh, and maybe some better fleshed out dynamic dialouge. This can come in handy when there are more then one player the NPCs have to recognize and gain awareness of.
Oh, and maybe some better fleshed out dynamic dialouge. This can come in handy when there are more then one player the NPCs have to recognize and gain awareness of.
If you are going to put a replay feature in your game, then have the decency to allow people to export those replays into videos without the need for DVRs, recording programs ect... What the hell is the point in saving replays if you can't friggen export them!?
Every game that has a replay feature should have built in record/video export feature so you can save them onto your hard drive or whatever. Plenty of awesome fights and game-play moments that are awesome and want to share, but have no cheap and easy way of sharing them on youtube or whatever.
Cmon, Dissidia got this right, and it was on a god damn hand held with an entire editing suite to boot. It defeats the whole purpose of having saved replays if you have no built in way to export them.
Every game that has a replay feature should have built in record/video export feature so you can save them onto your hard drive or whatever. Plenty of awesome fights and game-play moments that are awesome and want to share, but have no cheap and easy way of sharing them on youtube or whatever.
Cmon, Dissidia got this right, and it was on a god damn hand held with an entire editing suite to boot. It defeats the whole purpose of having saved replays if you have no built in way to export them.
And now, two from Chrono Cross that has yet to be implemented in it's genre:
1) Instead of being lazy and just refilling my health, there's a menu after battles in Cross that shows you what heals you can use at the time as you're collecting spoils and shit. It's awesome, and because MP isn't a concept in that game you don't have to worry about spending it.
2) Being able to run away instantaneously, on command, even from boss fights. Now on boss fights, you'll just restart the fight, but it's great if you realize something is wrong about your setup, of if, mid-fight, you realize your entire setup needs reworking. (Say you've got a lot of Blue elements, and the boss is rocking blue, so you can go switch to red.)
These are AWESOME in that game, and it's a damn shame they haven't been in other games.
1) Instead of being lazy and just refilling my health, there's a menu after battles in Cross that shows you what heals you can use at the time as you're collecting spoils and shit. It's awesome, and because MP isn't a concept in that game you don't have to worry about spending it.
2) Being able to run away instantaneously, on command, even from boss fights. Now on boss fights, you'll just restart the fight, but it's great if you realize something is wrong about your setup, of if, mid-fight, you realize your entire setup needs reworking. (Say you've got a lot of Blue elements, and the boss is rocking blue, so you can go switch to red.)
These are AWESOME in that game, and it's a damn shame they haven't been in other games.