CHUD.com Community › Forums › VIDEO GAMES & RPG › Video Games › Programmed hiccups
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Programmed hiccups

post #1 of 7
12/19/08 at 11:26pm
Thread Starter 
What are some small details in otherwise-great games that seem to have been implemented solely for your own annoyance? I'm not speaking of glitches, but rather gameplay elements.

Developers wish to make games more 'realistic' now - a new illusion similar to that of omnipresent handheld cameras in Hollywood blockbusters.

A major factor in this goal is the breakable gun - since System Shock 2 they have sucked fun out of first-person shooters. The latest couple games I bought also feature this - Fallout 3 and Far Cry 2.

You're still able to enjoy shooting things and people, but in the back of your head you know you'll have to find and repair your gun, in addition to finding more ammo.

It's gimmicky. In Fallout 3, for example, your weapons are far too fragile. And trying to repair most of them is pointless - may as well find another one.

I imagine a region rife with strife (!) such as war-torn Africa and even a hellish post-apocalyptic wasteland would have decent guns foremost to anything.
Reply
post #2 of 7
12/20/08 at 12:50am
I don't really care for the repair guns mechanic in Fallout 3. It's just a money sink. I turned to my roommate the first time I had to repair a gun and we both said "Are we raiding fucking Blackwing Lair?" It just doesn't seem to fit. Far Cry 2 did it better where a shitty weapon could jam, but you just needed to unjam it and get back to fighting.

Can the weight limit in inventories be considered a programmed hiccup as well?n
Reply
post #3 of 7
12/20/08 at 12:39pm
I don't mind the degrading guns in F3 at all because there were always others lying about to fix the ones I had. Especially if you max out your Repair skill, the guns become even more effective. Seems like a good gameplay mechanic to me. Same thing with weight limits. It's up to you where you're going to spend your stat points -- do you sacrifice weight limit and repair abilities for something else? -- seems to me that's kind of the whole point of role-playing. If I put all my points into strength, small arms and repair I couldn't very well complain about not being able to stealth through a mission or or use speech convincingly, could I?
Reply
post #4 of 7
12/20/08 at 12:49pm
And I'd nominate save checkpoints as stupid legacy hiccups. There's no excuse for not being able to save my games wherever I goddam please. And no, it doesn't "add tension" to the game, it just adds unecessary tedium.
Reply
post #5 of 7
12/20/08 at 1:37pm
Nothing to see here.
Reply
post #6 of 7
12/20/08 at 2:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jacob Singer View Post
And I'd nominate save checkpoints as stupid legacy hiccups. There's no excuse for not being able to save my games wherever I goddam please. And no, it doesn't "add tension" to the game, it just adds unecessary tedium.
This. I will never play a game without a save anywhere feature. Checkpoints are just an artficial way to prolong gameplay at the expense of actual fun. That's why I never got into any of the GTA games.
Reply
post #7 of 7
12/20/08 at 10:54pm
Thread Starter 
And I'm sure we remember the good old days of collecting one-ups to avoid dying enough times to have to use credits, which were harder to come by to escape the game over screen, which you could only face a few times and then it was all over, unless you wrote down a password to resume playing at a point much, much earlier in the game.
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Video Games
CHUD.com Community › Forums › VIDEO GAMES & RPG › Video Games › Programmed hiccups