CampusIntel

Love Like Rockets – Angels and Airwaves I’ve been a fan of the Sims since a childhood friend told me about it during recess in grade three.  I’ve bought most of their nine-billion expansion packs and more or less respected the way they treated gamers.  But once the internal studios of EA took over the development of the franchise from Maxis with The Sims 3, they compromised customer satisfaction for profits. In my books, that’s something you don’t do….so this is my official complaint about The Sims 3.

SHOW ME THE DREADS!

First of all, the developers failed to include an editor like The Sims 2’s “Body Shop,” which allowed players to create clothing, hair, skin tones, and eye colour.  On top of that, the game launched with a few downloadable packs full with different hairstyles, clothing and whole furniture sets.  I could see if they released it even a month after they launched the game, but at the same time?  That means they were fully capable of putting all of that stuff into the game, but instead they figured they could just sell it to the audience.  Despicable!  And worst of all, they STILL haven’t released a good-looking head of dreadlocks, which to me, is leaving out a crucial hairstyle–the second game came with it at launch! I understand how ridiculous it might be for an 18 year-old guy to be complaining about the lack of a few articles of clothing, furniture sets and dreadlocks in a virtual life simulator, but I stress that it’s a conflict of two distinct sets of principals that is causing the problem.  Think about it: you’re buying a more-than-full-price game already, and then they cut stuff out and then try and sell THAT to you on top of it!  It’s not like The Sims wasn’t a profitable franchise before either; they’re really not the people that need to robbing people–that’s worse that Bethesda selling a decent ending for Fallout 3. Anyways, that’s enough about that game, I think I’m done ranting for now.  In other news, zOMGies, a Flash run-and-gun zombie game has made quite a spectacular splash (the rhyme was completely unintended).  I enjoy it thoroughly, as it provides a unique, but very exasperating sense of desperation as wave after wave is thrown–or better yet, run at you.  The developers also nailed the controls, as you’ll have to squeeze and slip by zombies in order to get good shots off, while maintaining forward momentum at the same time.  You definitely get a little friendly with zombies, which is cool, because that’s something most people try and avoid. That’s some quality advice for anyone planning on fighting zombies anytime soon… That’s all folks…

Post Track : Geto Heaven Pt. 2 – Common ft. Macy Grey

I think Bethesda’s Fallout 3 was in many respects, a success. In many other ways however, I find the game infuriating. I think the part that bothers me the most is the fact that the first two games in the series already had the solution for most of my issues; it’s as if Bethesda took a few steps backwards on some key concepts in the design.

Anyways, as my point is not to bash Bethesda’s efforts, I find it incredibly annoying that the game constantly uses the “skill level is too low” excuse, which when examined closely, is nothing but lazy game design. In the first two games (developed by the late Black Isle Entertainment), in order to most accurately represent pen and paper RPG’s, all skills were calculated with dice rolls. In other words, this means that the act of using a skill was a calculation of several different variables working in tandem, rather than simply comparing two values and determining the greater one. What’s great about the dice roll method is that it deals with chance and the likeliness factor. For instance, Player A with a low lockpicking skill is far less likely to unlock a high level lock than Player B with a high lockpicking skill. The beauty about it is the fact that Player A could still unlock the door, but they would have to be considerably lucky.

If you consider the primary function of video games to be recreating a certain reality, then in your perfect game, lockpicking would actually be the physical act of picking a lock. Seeing as we certainly don’t have the technology to do that yet, the developers of the first two games decided that instead of leaving the act to the player’s own capabilities, they left it to chance. To give the player the sense of progression, they allowed them to increase their chances, thereby illustrating the idea of growth.

Bethesda did it a little differently, and tried to leave the success of lockpicking to the player through a minigame. For those of you who haven’t played it, in this minigame, the player has to use the mouse (the left stick on consoles) to rotate a bobby pin around the lock in an effort to find the “sweet spot.” At the same time, the WASD keys (or the right stick on console) is used to apply pressure to a screwdriver under the bobby pin; if too much pressure is applied to the bobby pin when it is not in the “sweet spot,” then it breaks and the player has to start again.

Fallout 3's Lockpicking System

The minigame at its least, is a solid recreation of the physical act of lockpicking. My problem with the system is that the game doesn’t get much harder. From the first lock you pick, to the very last, nothing changes except the size of the sweet spot, which at first may pose slight discomfort, but is quickly overcome. However, the game also checks the player’s lockpick skill when allowing them to attempt to pick the lock. This means that regardless of the whether the player is able to successfully complete the most difficult lockpicking minigame (which actually isn’t that hard) or not, they won’t be able to try unless they are a high enough level. In other words, instead of measuring how good the player is at completing the lockpicking minigame, and judging whether or not they are able to pick the lock based on that, Bethesda decided to base it on an arbitrary “level” variable that supposedly evaluates how effective the player is at picking locks. This completely defeats the purpose of the minigame in the first place. Instead of the act of picking a lock being based on chance or the player’s own ability, it’s based on an unrelated variable, completely disregarding the player’s ability to open locks.

Despite my venomous attack on these types of game mechanics, there games (such as Bioshock’s hacking system) that get it right. Those games are fundamentally based on the player’s ability to complete the minigames.

Sigh…

Come back Black Isle…..

(A man can dream)