Archive for the 'Misc stuff' Category

Older people tend to note how kids, today, have no sense of how much harder things were in the early days. But it can also happen in the opposite direction: if all you’ve ever known was something “bad”, you will probably consider it “normal”, and be satisfied with it.

For instance, if you were born under a dictactorship, it’s very likely that you won’t see your lack of freedom as a problem, especially if you don’t have any contact with people in more free societies. So kids will be satisfied, while their parents or grandparents may remember a time when you could say what you thought without being arrested, for instance.

But… what does all this have to do with games? (you were probably wondering if you’d arrived at another blog by mistake…) Simple: the lack of originality in today’s games.

Most young gamers (say, under 20) probably don’t see a problem with games, these days. To them, it’s perfectly normal to be able to say “it’s like C&C” or “it’s like Counter-Strike, only with…”. To them, there are probably fewer than 10 game genres, and that’s OK. You like some, you dislike the rest.

If you’re 30 or so, however, and a gamer (not simply someone who plays a game from time to time), you’ll be bored with most of today’s games, and for a reason. You remember the early 80s.

I’ve had difficulty in explaining those times to younger people, because they seem inconceivable (much like having only 2 TV channels, I guess), imposssible. A time when there weren’t just a few defined genres, but in which almost every game was completely original? A time when games were written by a single person, at home, instead of huge teams of programmers, artists, musicians and designers? An era when games were not designed by committees, but came from the imagination of the author – and, thus, weren’t watered down, but could, instead, take risks? An age when games didn’t cost millions of dollars to make, and, so, didn’t need to be similar to other games that had already sold well? When people weren’t obsessed with 3D?

You mean, there was a time when games weren’t simply first person shooters, real time strategy, driving, sports or Tetris/Bejeweled clones? When every game could be – and usually was – completely new?

Nah. Many people, today, can’t even imagine such a thing.

And so, kids are happy buying sequels after sequels, buying the same game over and over, just with better graphics than the previous version. They’re happy, and they don’t see anything wrong with it.

But I remember. I remember the Videopac / Odyssey2, the ZX Spectrum, the C64, the Amiga, and even the NES/SNES.

But try explaining that to kids, these days.

A couple of days ago, I bought Chessmaster 10th Edition, as it was ridiculously cheap. Great game, the best tutorials ever, incredible graphics, and all that. But one feature caught my attention: several chess sets needed to be unlocked! “You need to win 25 rated games to unlock this set”, and so on.

This is common in many kinds of games, such as racing games, but in a chess game? It was certainly new to me.

And this got me thinking about unlockables. I’ve seen people saying that they don’t like them – why shouldn’t all the content be available from the start? Why should I have to work to get it all? Besides, a game with 20 cars has as many cars as one with 10 from the start, and 10 which need to be unlocked.

But… I like unlockables. Sure, in the end the content is the same, but unlockables mean that there’s always something new in the near horizon, always one more goal. And when you do unlock it, it’s a novelty.

Using the cars example: if you have 20 cars from the beginning, you probably try 3 or 4, choose a favorite, and use just that one from now on. If you have to unlock most of them, on the other hand, you will probably try out each new one as it’s unlocked. Much better, isn’t it?

So, game designers, please ignore the cries of lazy, instant gratification gamers. To them, playing isn’t a joy, it’s a chore, it’s “work”, which they do just to get to the end and “beat” the game.