After seeing Nour Polloni's walkthrough of the tech demo the other day (and your response), it's clear that I wasn't the only one to be impressed by the footage of Alone in the Dark 5. No doubt about it, Eden games has done a fantastic job of piquing our interest for their upcoming survival horror sequel.
Now comes news with a horrific twist of its own, and it involves a feature in the game that I don't recall ever seeing before now -- the ability to "wimp out" and skip the hard parts. OXM got the interview with Polloni, detailing the game, and were kind enough to share it with us. Most of it smacks of familiarity, but this one detail took the cake:
"Another achievement is linked to whether or not the player skips. We want everybody to be able to finish our game, so one of the other new features we've added is the ability to skip sections using a DVD-style menu if you get stuck, but always at a cost, and achievements is one way to reward players who don't skip."
I really don't know what to say about that. Making sure that your game's difficulty level is balanced enough so that people have a reasonable chance of seeing the closing credits is great. Giving them the option to skip past the parts that prove too challenging? Not sure I like the sound of that one, at all. Since you can always choose to play through the game as usual, nothing is lost. Still, it ranks as one of the most unorthodox ways of using the Xbox 360's achievements yet. How do you feel about this revelation? Is it a cool new feature, or complete waste of development time?
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Contest:
10:12 AM on 02.19.2008
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But...I'm a little dumbfounded about this feature.
"We want everybody to be able to finish our game,"
At the cost of them not actually playing it I suppose.
I can't really consider one beating a game unless it's actually...you know....played.
That would probably work a bit better.
Another way to think about it, what if putting on god mode was as simple as going into options and enabling it? And how many of you have cheated at a game before and then felt a distinct lack of fun/accomplishment thereafter? It makes a huge difference, even if only subconsciously.
Furthermore, it's a shitty cop out to just making the damned game difficulty balanced and I'm surprised they even think this is worth PR'ing about. Sounds about on par stupidity-wise with the "we're not going to have pause so our game is intense" idea that other developer was raving about.
On the other, what's the cunting point buying it if you're not going to play it?
Definitely a feature for pussies, though I wonder if this means the devs will be lazy as shit about balancing the game now. :-/
stupid expert slash.
They could just do difficulty levels; having an Easy difficulty makes a game more accessible to people. Oh wait, that would take some effort on the developers' part, which is obviously something they don't want
Like when my mate says he's completed MGS3. I tell him "No you haven't!" It just doesn't count if you play it though on Very Easy with an unlimited tranq gun that has enough kick to bring down a fucking elephant and all the enemies/goons are near blind.
A "DVD-style skip menu" just sounds like a huge fucking lazy solution to proper balance.
They might even make it so that you cant switch the difficulty unless you die three times in a section. AT least that way people aren't simply bypassing the game.
If you want to make something more people can "get through," make a movie.
I don't think it's a horrible feature. As long as they penalize players significantly for doing it, then it should be fine. It's obviously not necessary, though.
I can't tell you how many times I've given up on a game because I can't get past a part. It's not that I won't TRY - I just don't care enough to continue wasting my time. It's an OPTION, what the hell do you care if OTHER PEOPLE "ruin their experience"?
As the gaming mainstream grows beyond that of hardcore gamers, the gap between the most and least skilled players widens. I think this is a fantastic way to handle that issue.
Some people are more interested in the story than they are in grinding against a boss for 12 hours.
Newer games don't have this problem (I find) as after a few tries everything works out fine thanks to saves.
It's kind of sad that you'd care whether somebody else skipped part of a game they were stuck on or just plain weren't enjoying to move the story forward. But it's expected in the current environment of "hardcore" gamers who actually take a thing like 'gamerscore" seriously...as if it isn't just the gamer geek equivalent of clipping Betty Crocker points off of cereal boxtops.
I think most RPGs should have an adventure mode anyway. 1/10th the encounters with boosted drops and exp. Let you replay a game again without investing another 80 hours. Let busy people enjoy the new Final Fantasy. Show more casual gamers the joy of RPGs. They'll sell more RPGs, we'll get more RPGs... where's the problem?
"What do you mean that throwing at you a dozen of rocket launcher armed megazombies it's unfair ? If you are a puss just skip it, no ?"
I play the game. I get to a part I can't beat, no matter how many times I try. I can't skip it. I put it down, and never play it again. I sell the game to GameStop.
I play the game. I get to a part I can't beat, no matter how many times I try. I skip that part, and complete the rest of the game. I may or may not sell the game to GameStop, depending on how good it is.
But it depends on the situation like if its a timed sequence,stubborn boss, or an escort scenario then I wouldnt even hesitate to skip that shit. If the games gonna be as easy as Bioshock which had those same brisk cinematic vibes than thats good enough.
Furthermore, it seems the enjoyment of a game (or at least memory of enjoyment) totally increases when you have beaten it (even if you pussed out). You associate the sense of achievement with this game and then are interested in buying the next one.
You don't have to use it, something extra is always a good thing (take a transexual for example).
On the flip side, it will be good to have an achievement you can ridicule someone about.