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Gaming: Features that make a game unacceptible, or, A Gamers Manifesto
Thu, 23 Feb 2006

In case I hadn't mentioned it earlier, I made numerous New Years Resolutions but also a few Unresolutions. ie: I decided I would Take Less Crap from misguided companies, which led to my realizing just exactly how much spam one gets in the physical post and how many fake phonecalls one receives every day. Anyway, in the same grain of funk, there are a few things that will require me not to hand cash over to game publishers...

Nolonger will I accept a game which uses "random dungeons." -- I played, nay, bought a Sony PSP for Untold Legends -- a simple Gauntlet-like modern action-RPG descended from some very fine console games (Baldur's Gate on the PS2 and XBox, not related to the PC games of the same name.) I enjoyed it for a little while, but something nagged away -- why on some dungeons did all the monsters sit at the end of the dungeon, leaving it lifeless? How come the dungeons were all more or less dull, and lack any form of interesting design... whereas the big-console games featured well balanced and tasty dungeons? When a game is an 'action-RPG' (hack and slash), it really needs interesting content since let's face it -- the game itself isn't all that complex. I found out one day that Untold Legends used a random dungeon generator and it suddenly made sense.. and the game hasn't been loaded since. If they want my money, they need to work for it.. not depend entirely on "user created" (modded) content, nor randomized. Thats the lazy way out. If it was $20 a title, sure, maybe then. Maybe. With sadness I found out Untold Legends 2 will continue this trend -- they announce it with pride -- do they not realize we all hate it? They tout it in the name of "increased replayability", which is a funny way to spell "no gameplay."

I will not play games that are predominantly 3d-in-the-dark as a crutch - for real gameplay. Thief III is almost entirely in the stifling darkness, but thats okay -- you're playing a thief who must sneak around and avoid confrontation, so thats mechanic and in that series it is at least very textured -- the darkness is akin to seeing snow through the eyes of an Inuit. Halflife 2 was a fantastic game, but I'd have enjoyed the dark levels if I could see them more .. though when Apex tipped me off to using more gamma it helped a lot. Doom 3 is entirely in the dark, which might be okay except the 'flashlight' is turned off when using a weapon. Sure, they've crafted the game to have scares in it.. but making it awkward and unrealistic is just silly. And really, I've had enough with walking around in the dark and having a demon jump out at me. Just like having the hero head over to the dark scary castle because his car broke down is old, wandering blind is past its prime.

Lastly but not finally, I will not play an RPG with a traditional Japanese-RPG-storyline. I'm sorry, but I've had it with 13 year olds running off to rescue their abducted siblings. Big swords are cool, big managa eyeballs are fine.. but lets have some decent dialog, some real characters, and a good story. (There are some great stories in there, but must all that wonderful time travel begin with a pre-teen?)

There is no need to rant on about how annoying managing inventory can be, or navigating a more or less empty maze. These are well treat topics, heady conversations of days past. But new games that fail the above... please.

Edit: Exception to the above -- Nethack can do random dungeons all it wants.

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