Things Games Developers Should Avoid

[RetroKingSimon]

Things Games Developers Should Avoid

Getting bought out by EA

Ice/water levels, rarrrr!

The ice levels in Psycho Fox rule

And Thunder Force 3

[oswald]

what I hate is when you are forced to do unnessesary repetitive keypresses to start a game/new round, or having to rewatch the same cutscene or effect before you are let into the playing part until you want to chew down your own leg.

fex. need for speed most wanted: when you want to go to the next race, you have to press esc, then choose safe house, then tell the game you really want to go to the safe house, then enter blacklist, then enter races, then pick race, then must tell the game again you are really sure you want to play this, and then the next race starts... not to mention all the unskippable eye candy you have to watch a gazillion times between all of these events.

[Oh not again!]

Release sequel after sequel after sequel by simply changing team names around, updating player lists and by sodding around with the gameplay by adding new "features" which completely break the dynamic of the game.

[RetroKingSimon]

Release sequel after sequel after sequel by simply changing team names around, updating player lists and by sodding around with the gameplay by adding new "features" which completely break the dynamic of the game.

I wonder who you could be talking about

[bonerlaw]

Multi-format publishing!

Sometimes (not always) they try to maximise profit by publishing one game for far to many systems, so you get a load of below average games, when you would prefer to have just a few quality versions of a game!

[Antiriad2097]

Single format publishing!

Sometimes (not always) they could maximise profit by publishing a game across multiple platforms. I'd prefer to be able to play the cream of these games instead of missing out on so many because I can't afford all 3 consoles. There are many players who only own 1 or 2 consoles so they're losing sales for no reason. Cross platform development really isn't difficult, especially if you don't insist on forcing waggle into the Wii version.

[bonerlaw]

Single format publishing!

Sometimes (not always) they could maximise profit by publishing a game across multiple platforms. I'd prefer to be able to play the cream of these games instead of missing out on so many because I can't afford all 3 consoles. There are many players who only own 1 or 2 consoles so they're losing sales for no reason. Cross platform development really isn't difficult, especially if you don't insist on forcing waggle into the Wii version.

Ah, touché!

[RetroKingSimon]

Single format publishing!

Sometimes (not always) they could maximise profit by publishing a game across multiple platforms. I'd prefer to be able to play the cream of these games instead of missing out on so many because I can't afford all 3 consoles. There are many players who only own 1 or 2 consoles so they're losing sales for no reason. Cross platform development really isn't difficult, especially if you don't insist on forcing waggle into the Wii version.

I can see your point, and agree with you for the most part, but if games were published on all formats, what would be the point of having more than one format?

As long as the games industry is dominated by super-rich companies like Sony and Microsoft, developers will always be bought out by one of them, or at least offered loads of money for an exclusive.

[Antiriad2097]

Single format publishing!

Sometimes (not always) they could maximise profit by publishing a game across multiple platforms. I'd prefer to be able to play the cream of these games instead of missing out on so many because I can't afford all 3 consoles. There are many players who only own 1 or 2 consoles so they're losing sales for no reason. Cross platform development really isn't difficult, especially if you don't insist on forcing waggle into the Wii version.

I can see your point, and agree with you for the most part, but if games were published on all formats, what would be the point of having more than one format?

As long as the games industry is dominated by super-rich companies like Sony and Microsoft, developers will always be bought out by one of them, or at least offered loads of money for an exclusive.

They don't have to be identical games. Look at CoD4 - there's a version for PS3, 360 and DS! Where's the Wii version? Yes, it can't match the visuals of the big two, but it could do a solid version of the DS experience.

The Force Unleashed looks promising, one of my most wanted titles and one of the few I'm hyped about - different game, different platforms, playing to the strenghths of each with a single marketing budget.

I'm not suggesting we lose console exclusives, its the versions that only make 2 platforms that annoy me. Either make it a system exclusive or do it a proper cross platform release.

[RetroKingSimon]

Ohhh, okay. Yes, that sounds more plausible. Where would we be without 'my console is better than yours' arguments, after all?

[Elgin_McQueen]

Unskippable cut scenes. If we wanted to see your censored-poor attempts at Pixar we would buy an animation disc from a pound shop.

Far, far worse than this are unskippable end credits that have a final cut scene tacked on the end to give you the "real" ending or somesuch.

There is nothing worse than this in gaming. An absurdly long scrolling list of names that mean absolutely nothing to me and all set to dull music. Who cares about the non-entities that worked on the game? I sure don't.

Was it Super Smash Bros that let you shoot the names as they flew by? Even gave you a score at the end too, that livened it up a bit, I was constantly trying to beat my earlier scores.

[Devious]

A big one for me is when you can't pause a cut-scene. I hate that. If anything happens while a scene is on, then that's it, you have missed it. Sometimes someone will shout me to say someone is on the phone, or the tea is ready, or come in and start talking to me.

I sometimes have to pause a game until I'm sure I won't be interrupted for the next few minutes so I can start another mission on GTA IV.

What's so hard about making the Start button stop and start the scenes? A replay option would also be good. I'll be getting MGS IV soon, and I'm hoping for a pause button.

Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds is like that. The tutorial has no provision to adjust the rate of the displayed text or to pause it and it just rushes right through most of it.

[Devious]

games where the programmer lets you choose the dificulty level ; this smacks of poor design and laziness

Um, sorry Marv - got to disagree -

Firstly the programmer only implements the design - so he/she isn't offering you the chance to choose - the designer is offering it.

Secondly there's more work involved in supporting difficulty levels, not less, so the laziness argument isn't valid (the amount of work depends on the type of game, but generally the play-through path is different because of increased AI difficulty or extra obstacles or whatever - it all has to be designed, coded and tested).

Thirdly it's a way to increase the longevity and replay value of the game. Sure some folks will go straight to 'Insanely Hard' level, but lots of others will be happy for a gentler introduction on the easy setting before tackling the variations that are introduced with the higher difficulty levels...

Well anyway, that's how I see it...

O-Jax

Wow O-Jax you're certainly not lazy. You're totally correct. I was too lazy to reply to such an obviously erroneous post though.

[Devious]

I hate respawning enemies, unless it's absolutely necessary that you have them. Sometimes they're there as a cheap way to make a game more difficult.

I agree with you. I like finite numbers of enemies so when I clear an area I can go back and explore hassle-free.

[Devious]

I hate the 'cookie cutter' games that come out.
[...]
i) Stealth
ii) Urban Street Racing
iii) Gorey fatalities
iv) Tedious RPG micromanagement in an action game
v) Lots of famous people doing voice acting
vi) Hint that there might be nudity in the game
[...]

If an original element of a game is initially well received. I find that games using the same or similar elements to be also desirable, if they are done correctly. That is to say that as long as familiarity of the element does not significantly lessen its attractiveness then it's just more of what's good.