What is Digg?271 Comments
- antishow, on 10/19/2007, -0/+239You know what I would like more than skippable cutscenes? PAUSABLE cutscenes.
I can't be the only one who's found himself watching a cutscene for the first time and having to get up for some reason. Why are the only options either skipping it and missing important details, or pissing off my mom/girlfriend/dog/whatever? - csonjeow, on 10/19/2007, -4/+21411. Always Conclude The Story With A Satisfying Ending.
Whether its a happy ending or a sad ending, there is nothing worse than committing your time and money to a game only to feel empty at the end. Each mission/stage/level gives the player a sense of accomplishment that makes him/her want to see what happens next. This process happens all the way up to the final boss battle where the fruits of all your labor payoff. If that payoff isn't there. You have just made it that much harder to take your next title seriously. As a developer, your only as good as your last piece of work, therefore you should always leave it on a high note. - monsterofNone, on 10/16/2007, -20/+15012. always take gaming advice from a writer for friggin business week.
- JustMatt, on 10/16/2007, -3/+126Im gonna have to disagree with the saving at checkpoints. Splinter Cell comes to mind. Sometimes, I just keep going forward, just to see whats there, but I wouldnt want to actually save, cause I probably have no ammo and am about dead. I want to keep my game saved back where I was at full health and had ammo so I can go back if I ***** myself.
- lead2thehead, on 10/16/2007, -3/+102Save-On-Demand! I have missed too many classes because I couldn't find a save point on Final Fantasy.
- AnimeOmega, on 10/19/2007, -3/+9915. If the game has co-op for the consoles, let co-op stay for the PC version...
- ahsteele, on 10/19/2007, -6/+76Regardless the guy makes excellent points.
- fuzzynyanko, on 10/19/2007, -1/+70"6. Never make use of every controller button just because you can."
They should also add controller features to the list. Just because the Wii has motion controls, not every game needs to use them. - juicebag, on 10/15/2007, -4/+60Also, more games should have interactive cut scenes like HL2.
- Anagrama, on 10/21/2007, -5/+59Ahhhh... The cutscenes. I always watch them the first play through, but I usually try and skip them on subsequent runs. When I can't skip them, my muscles tense and my brain starts to wonder if the developers have any puppies at their house to which I can do bad things to.
Ranbow Six: Vegas, I'm talking to you!!!! - XBSHX, on 10/15/2007, -16/+65I agreed with most of them except the press any button one. Is it really so important for people to NOT use their brains?
- MagicCake, on 10/19/2007, -0/+45Yeah, I definitely agree with you there. Xenosaga had some insanely long cutscenes but it let you pause them, and I appreciated that.
The only time I can think of when I'd want to skip a cutscene is when you die and have to go through the same part again. Games that put a giant cutscene right before a hard boss (where it's likely you'll die and have to redo it) and don't let you skip it really piss me off. Other than that, I always watch it if I haven't seen it yet. - juicebag, on 10/15/2007, -2/+4615. In FPS games, you are not a floating arm carrying a gun. Even in the most recent shooters, it bugs me how jumping over or to something can be kind of tough to not be able to look down and see your feet and legs. Only a few games (like GRAW) actually render you.
- JavertHolmes, on 10/19/2007, -2/+46No, you don't always want your game to be saved depending on your level of OCD with a given game. Take the Final Fantasy series, for example. If you are 60 hours into a game and do something at the 61st hour which requires you to either restore from hour 60 or miss out on a one-time item for the rest of the game, then happening to run over a save checkpoint before you find out you've missed out on such a thing is Not A Good Thing. Save space to a memory card is not unlimited, so you don't necessarily have unlimited levels of "undo." As a side note, I think one-time items are a bad design idea in general, but that's just me. I think the auto-save is only useful in games where you don't backtrack, like (most) FPSes.
The "press the start button" comment seems like nitpicking. The "start" button is the most logical button to start a game. It's a one-time process to find this button on a completely new controller, as finding the "enter" key is on a keyboard or finding where to use the windshield wiper spray is on a new car. - arjie, on 10/19/2007, -6/+48That bit about the cutscenes is so important also because when the CD gets scratched eventually, the cutscenes will sometimes be the only parts that get hurt. Then if you aren't allowed to skip them the whole game may jam. Okay, maybe it's not common, but that one time it happened to me with Red Alert 2 is bad enough.
- fantasticFlan, on 10/19/2007, -1/+43Best solution I've seen: start pauses and presents a menu to continue or skip.
- Jadey, on 10/19/2007, -2/+43If you take cut scenes out of Final Fantasy games... is there anything left?
- i208khonsu, on 10/15/2007, -9/+48This guys is complaining about having 17 buttons on a controller? I count 38 keys and mouse buttons I use in virtually every computer game I play.
- 4bit, on 10/19/2007, -0/+39#?. Let us skip your damn ingame tutorial.
Nothing kills my desire to replay a game faster than knowing I have to walk through the tutorial... again. Make it optional. - bradleyland, on 10/19/2007, -2/+35The story was syndicated from Next Generation - Interactive News, a kind of Reuters for gaming. Frankly, I find some personal validation in the fact that gaming news is being published in business week. Gaming _is_ a business, you know.
- salimai, on 10/15/2007, -1/+24Not on consoles.
- HanSolo69, on 10/16/2007, -4/+270. Don't make games based on movies franchises.
- Inverno, on 10/15/2007, -0/+22His use of quotation marks also implies that a game typically does not contain art. A point with which I disagree.
- Dan2552, on 10/15/2007, -2/+24Don't bury him, he's saying gameplay > graphics.
- Schmapdi, on 10/19/2007, -0/+22Angst
- JesperL, on 10/15/2007, -0/+22Definitely. Even if the game is the first or second in a trilogy, it should go without saying that the player should still be rewarded with a half decent ending.
- Tanath, on 10/15/2007, -2/+23Judging claims based on who makes them is not logical. Sometimes it's a useful mental shortcut, but that's all. You should evaluate based on what's being said, not who's saying it.
- fuzzynyanko, on 10/19/2007, -1/+21I agree. Some of the linear games have branching points as well so instead of starting a game from the beginning, you can take it from closer to that branching point. Also, autosaving can cause a delay of loading times. In one of these games there was a building and I kept running in and out of it and the autosave just kept running.
- Nidy1, on 10/19/2007, -0/+19You too?
- sotopheavy, on 10/15/2007, -0/+19What if it was a feature of the console itself to have an in-game menu that lets you remap every button to completely customize your controls. That should be the standard. Game devs wouldn't have to deal with it and you could change something that bugs you about controls in every game.
- dclowd9901, on 10/15/2007, -4/+23No, but it's design 101. The fewer barriers to entry, the more engaged a player can become. Ideally, you'll strip down these barriers to entry to near-zero. Read the interview Ken Levine did for 1up a little while back. The guy has the right idea about videogames, insofar as the developer needs to take a step back and understand that they're not gods, and people don't always want to sift through their garbage to play games.
http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3162207 - cubeeggs, on 10/15/2007, -0/+17New Super Mario Bros. comes to mind.
- rectifier, on 10/15/2007, -7/+2414. never, ever ***** with the undead.
- Synthesize, on 10/15/2007, -1/+1714. Add a matchmaking multiplayer experience and party lobbies to video games that really need them.
Not enough online video games have them. - rhinoceroz, on 10/15/2007, -0/+16and a rule for people who design RPGs. Why, oh, why do you have to make long, bad expository dialog? Every time you address a character, they launch into a ten minutes diatribe. If Hollywood movies had that much exposition, we would never watch them. Good dialog is simple, to the point, and should only convey necessary information.
- HonoredMule, on 10/19/2007, -0/+16These are just arguments not to overwrite old save points, something PC games rarely ever do, something I doubt many modern console games do, and something specifically covered in the article as well.
I was surprised when I discovered that Portals only keeps the last x (about 10) saves on file. This is unusually poor history tracking for PC games, but then Portals lets you load directly into any level you've already played anyway...another now common way of getting around previous content. - juicebag, on 10/16/2007, -1/+17Businessweek.com ain't going down.
- 4bit, on 10/19/2007, -0/+15Actually I've played a couple games where there was a specific 'start' button, but it wasn't labeled. The buttons took you different places, but you wouldn't know that until you tried them.
So, press any key, is a nice thing. - pathy, on 10/15/2007, -7/+22How about,
Don't dumb down your games because your play testers happen to be a bunch of ***** morons. - captainh, on 10/15/2007, -1/+16Cut scenes are used a lot to hide loading screens and make load time go faster for the player. Would you rather look at a stupid progress bar? Although I agree that once the loading is complete, they should give you the option.
- Philluminati, on 10/15/2007, -0/+15Totally agree with the comment about skipping cut scenes. I'm trying to play Metal Gear Solid 3, again. I've seen the story so i don't want to learn about how to get a backpack from a tree, again. It's takes about 40 minutes from choosing "New game" from the menu to controlling Snake. This really is insane. Even if you hold down triangle through all the codec conversations, it still takes the whole hour to find someone to stab.
- Mearn, on 10/15/2007, -1/+16Yeah, nobody plays games on consoles anyway!
Wait... - Firehed, on 10/15/2007, -0/+13I agree, but that's the exception to the rule. Of course, this is rather easily fixed by allowing players to load from any checkpoint they've crossed, with the load screen displaying both a screen capture and player stats so you know whether it's a "safe" file to load.
- DrStephanHeimer, on 10/29/2007, -12/+25Right because i have sooooo much trouble finding the start button. One time I even had to call tech support
- fuzzynyanko, on 10/15/2007, -0/+12I second the New Super Mario Bros statement. I usually leave one or two of the extra places unbeaten so I can go back to save.
- arjie, on 10/15/2007, -0/+12But, then the games wouldn't work for you :)
- Speed, on 10/19/2007, -0/+11@Fett101:
Or you go to the load this level option that Portal gives you (at least on the computer).
And personally, saving should be up to the player. Screw "save only at checkpoints" and stuff like that, let the person save whenever the hell they want. - goblindegook, on 10/19/2007, -0/+11You could circumvent that problem by still allowing voluntary save games that don't interfere with the autosave feature. That way you can still undo your mistakes, and if you forget to save, the game takes care of that for you.
- sdcarter, on 10/19/2007, -4/+15Yeah, cuz every time I move for cover I want to see the same animation over and over again. And don't get me started on how I have to go through the same routine of unnecessary moves when all I want to do is jump over something. I just want to jump over that random pillar that's been knocked over, not watch my dude throw his whole body into aforementioned pillar AND THEN watch him climb over it.
It's called a jump button, GoW. It was invented for a reason. - sishgupta, on 10/16/2007, -2/+12HL2 SPOILER ALERT
I didn't think that the HL2 ending was unsatisfying. Gordon completed his goal and then the gman takes him to stasis, which i thought was more satisfying because i knew that the backstory with gman would be continued. If you were as much as a fan of the first one as I am, the ending of hl2 was true to the prequel as well.
What did you want? Gordon to drive around in a motorcade waving to all the people? -
Show 51 - 100 of 266 discussions
The Digg Toolbar for Firefox lets you Digg, submit content, and keep track of Digg even when you're not on the Digg site. Download the official 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is