It always spoils the illusion somewhat when you realize that, no matter how well you’re doing in certain racing games, the opponents are always magically just behind you, seemingly able to catch up and overtake one at a moment’s notice like some gang of crazed, dedicated stalkers. Black Rock, developer of Pure, believes that such “rubber banding” is unfair.
“Players want to feel like they’re playing with the same rules as their opponents, and if they see the opponents adjusting what they’re doing based on the player, they’ll feel like they’re only along for the ride,” explains lead gameplay programmer Iain Gilfeather. “It’s not fair, and it’s not fun.
“On a previous game we worked on, the ATV series, we used rubber banding as a good way of getting fun, close, not lonely races. But in that we did have to resort to giving the AI extra abilities. While the game was reasonably successful and didn’t get too heavily criticised for it, internally we weren’t very happy with [rubber banding], and some of the designers wanted to get away from using it… we wanted there to be no easily spotted race management.”
What do you think of rubber banding? Do you think it’s necessary to create tense and challenging races, or do you feel that it ruins the magic? It personally reminds me of that ridiculous unwritten rule in sport, where one team is allowed to win, but never dominate the opponent, because apparently that’s unsporting. Domination is the only way to win.
Published: Aug 17, 2009 10:00 pm