Making a bad game may be unforgivable to some, but even worse is making a good game that suffers from the following five design sins. Whether it be an action or adventure game, the following five design flaws can cripple what was potentially a classic.
The Sisyphus Syndrome
Doing the same thing over and over again makes Jack a dull boy.
Killing all the bad guys in a room is certainly fun the first, second, and even tenth time. However, somewhere around about the fiftieth time one has to start to question if there might be something more than just kill, rise and repeat. Even stylish fighters such as Ninja Gaiden fall into the same mundane pattern of doing the same thing over and over again. Sure, occasional boss battles break it up, but short of making a game entirely of boss battles (Shadow of the Colossus) there must be a better way.
One thought would be to change up the approach for different areas. This isn’t a call for more half-hearted mini-games, though. Instead, developers should look to successful games that got the occasional diversion right. Crash Bandicoot’s running to the camera levels. Beyond Good & Evil’s city escape level. Such changes in approach don’t have to be revolutionary, but something new would be nice now and then.
God Got Tired
And therefore, he only created five kinds of beings for you to hunt and kill.
In the Super Nintendo days it was common to see side-scrolling fighting games where you battled the same five enemies over and over again. Though, in fairness, they sometimes got a new color scarf. Gamers accepted, begrudgingly, that memory limitations prevented games from featuring millions of differently designed characters. It simply wasn’t practical with 2D sprites.
Now that the 3D age is upon the world, and almost every game imaginable features customizable characters, why can’t gamers get the same variety in enemies? It takes minutes to design new players in NBA 2K8, so why is Master Chief gunning down the same ten or so aliens again and again? Understandably, they can’t suddenly introduce a Covenant fighter with a panda head, but they could show some depth of variation beyond what weapon they’re carrying. Here’s an idea, how about a Wii game that used the consoles Miis as the enemies your character had to plow through? There, all the hard work is done for the developers.
Color Blind Mice
People who can not see color should not be allowed to develop games.
Everyone knows high-resolution 720p games only come in one color-brown. But what’s the excuse for most games and their terribly muter color palettes? The real world is filled with color, even on a dreary day. Assuming the game doesn’t take place entirely within one day, then the world should also change dynamically its colors.
No one is looking for a Grateful Dead inspired color set (though that could be interesting). Gamers simply want to feel like there wasn’t something wrong with their last contacts prescription. Part of the solution, of course, it setting fewer games in metal, industrial hallways. Steam tunnels are fun for navigating below the surface of a college campus, but there’s only so much pleasure one can derive from shooting aliens, mutants, zombies and Nazis in them.
Sequel Gets A Gun
When making sequels, they should aspire to more than just a new cool gun.
Gamers understand that the development time on sequels is sometimes very short. In the case of series such as Tony Hawk, it’s less than a year from the release of the last version. Still, if you’re going to bother to make a sequel it should at least feature one new idea that isn’t just a new type of gun.
When it comes to first-person-shooters, everyone loves a new gun. When the sequel to Halo was released gamers were treated to all kinds of fun, new guns. You could even hold two at the same time! The rest of the game? Not that revolutionary. In fact, it basically felt like a Halo expansion pack with slightly better graphics and slightly worse level design. But there were those new guns.
No Eye of the Tiger
Every game should feature a training montage set to Eye of the Tiger.
Seriously. Why not?
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