Stupid game design tricks, part 2

[yendi]

I've bitched about one or two dumb idea killing a game before, notably in the original PS2 Baldur's Gate, which has a stupid jump-on-falling-stones puzzle early on that completely killed my ability to even give a shit about the game.

I found yet another one last night.

I bought X-Men Legends, now that the price has dropped. After finishing the first level, there's a sequence in which Jean Grey is giving Alison Crestmere (Magma, with a different and less silly origin than her comic-book version) a tour of the X-Mansion. As Alison, I moved to the corner of a room to look at a bookcase, and Jean followed. And stayed there. I could talk to her, I could tell her I was done with the tour, but no matter what I did, I couldn't get her to move the fuck out of the way. Since this was a non-fighting segment, even the jump option was off. Literally, no choices.

Now, I'm sure that there's some great fanfic out there in which Jean Grey corners Alison Crestmore and exposes her to her Phoenix Force*. But in this game, it meant that I had to fucking reload to the save point in level one, since there's no autosave or other option (granted, the save point was after the boss battle with the Blob, so it wasn't a huge deal. Just annoying. But still, stupid goddamn designers.

FWIW, I'm loving the game otherwise. Highly recommended, as long as you don't let Jean get you alone in the corner.





*Or, if you prefer, she shows Alison why she's called Marvel Girl. Or offers to make a New Mutant out of her. Etc.

Comments

[darth-spacey.livejournal.com]

There's a really stupid bit in the first Alien vs Predator game, in the first Predator level. Most of the level, you can clear out and get past with no trouble, once you get the hang of the controls. However, right at the end of the level, there's a *really* hard jump -- I think technically the hardest possible jump available within the physics of the game. If you make the jump, you get to the next level, and if you miss the jump, you die. Frustrating, but not too bad, right? Except the save game system is severely brain-damaged, such that the only save points are at the very beginning of each level. Yeah. So, fight your way through a bunch of guards, and simple puzzles, get to the jump, and whoops, you have to start over. And over, and over. Even if you're on the verge of a personal best score, or time, or anything else.

[yendi]

Exactly -- there's a serious problem either at the playtester level and/or at the "people who should listen to testers" level. Problems like that should be noted.

[experimentego.livejournal.com]

Many other first person shooters are guilty of these damn annoying jump puzzles but that one takes the cake. At least Star Trek: Elite Force II allowed you to save anywhere.

I think what drives me battier than a dumb jumping sequence is a dumb jumping sequence that comes out of nowhere, like in Half-Life where the final boss requires that you have mastered the art of jumping and landing on big alien brains to shoot the hell out of them --- frustrating because the game doesn't demand much jumping or train you in that skill up to that point.

[yendi]

I'm pretty sure I'll feel the same way. It's a blast so far.

[tablesaw]

Well, your problem looks like a playtest problem. I had the same thing happen in The Bards Tale the other day. I just happened to initiate a cutscene where a column was dead in the line that the computer wanted to make the Bard walk. So the Bard just kept walking straight into the column. If I'd been slightly over, he would have navigated around.

But that AvP thing? That's bad design. I mean, somebody sat down and decided that jump was something that they were going to sit down and code.

[yendi]

I'd say that both are playtest problems, as playtesting is supposed to be for balance as well as for bugs.

But I think the fact that the horrible design is already coded makes playtesters likely to be heard. A game producer can say to a programmer, "hey, this is a bug, fix it," and a programmer pretty much has no choice (assuming the game isn't Vampire: Bloodlines). But once bad design has been coded, the fight is often a lot tougher.

[corros.livejournal.com]

I've heard that different versions have different bugs. I also have heard (not proven since I haven't gone back to replay it yet) that they forgot to put some bonus items (like the Comic book for a certain character) in the X-box version.

I once had a similar problem with Alison, except she was in the backyard and I tried to take a shortcut over a banister that I could climb up on.. well instead of falling onto the ground onto the other side, the screen turned black and Alison started falling for infinity.... Seriously. She'd start in the middle of the screen and keep on falling until she'd hit a point and then she'd start at the top and coninuing falling. And while it was amusing, for a short period of time it became less amusing since I hadn't saved for close to an hour.