Video Games that STINK, the guide to better game design.
by Greg Charles Eckermann · 04/10/2006 (1:15 am) · 3 comments
Ever watch that show on G4 called X-Play and they keep telling you and bothering you to not buy a game that "sucks"! We'll if you a game designer don't listen to them, you can learn alot thru medicore games. Maybe not buy them but rent them as well or atleast play them for atleast six hours of playtime. There the best at informing you WHAT NOT TO DO with a game! I've learned thru my early generation PS2 3DO games that theres alot to do when you make a game you can fully understand how the game worked and what was REALLY wrong with it.
First off look for games that are rated with a 3/10 - 7/10 ratios in game rantings from critics. You don't want games that are 100% complete garabage that are 1/10 Because those games had no potental to begin with, they have to be atleast playable and they atleast have to have a good concept but poor execution. Game Rankings, Metacritic, and Rotten Tomatos are good searches on those kind of games.
You much play the game for atleast 6 hours then you will get a full understanding on how the game sucks and how can you fix it. Play the game like it was a beta and play around with everything possible, not just try to beat it but actualy find every bug and bad thing there is about the game even if you hate the game you will learn about it, heck you might thing the game could be not as bad as you would thing.
Also look for games that had alot of potentail and look at possibly how good these games actualy are and what could have been done if the game was ridden from certain flaws. Many of the games this last generation of game created would have been great games if they have been fixed and polish and had the issues worked out. Also study about the process of these games and what really went wrong with them. Maybe lack of budget, or lack of programers, or not tested enought, not enought time, lazyness, etc.
When you do all this you'll learn what to aviod and what to do when a similar situation happens
First off look for games that are rated with a 3/10 - 7/10 ratios in game rantings from critics. You don't want games that are 100% complete garabage that are 1/10 Because those games had no potental to begin with, they have to be atleast playable and they atleast have to have a good concept but poor execution. Game Rankings, Metacritic, and Rotten Tomatos are good searches on those kind of games.
You much play the game for atleast 6 hours then you will get a full understanding on how the game sucks and how can you fix it. Play the game like it was a beta and play around with everything possible, not just try to beat it but actualy find every bug and bad thing there is about the game even if you hate the game you will learn about it, heck you might thing the game could be not as bad as you would thing.
Also look for games that had alot of potentail and look at possibly how good these games actualy are and what could have been done if the game was ridden from certain flaws. Many of the games this last generation of game created would have been great games if they have been fixed and polish and had the issues worked out. Also study about the process of these games and what really went wrong with them. Maybe lack of budget, or lack of programers, or not tested enought, not enought time, lazyness, etc.
When you do all this you'll learn what to aviod and what to do when a similar situation happens
#2
The only game that truly disgusted me to horribly that I had to return it the next day was Tresspasser - that Jurassic Park game. I had been a fan of Seamus Blackley's other games (even the practically unknown Terra Nova), but Tresspasser was so atrocious I really didn't know where to begin. About the only thing that actually worked with that game was the voice acting. I even wanted to play it out of the belief that it was different and experimental - and the experiment failed miserably. From the horible "waldo" arm interface that would stretch across the level when it got stuck in collision, to the physics that didn't begin to resemble real-world motion (guns that would spin and roll, impossible to stop, down a board with a slight incline), to framerates that were literally 2 frames per second on a reasonably fast, up-to-date machine.
Ugly.
04/10/2006 (3:19 pm)
I agree - this is a very valuable exercise for any would-be game designer (or critic) - PLAY the bad ones. Learn why they are bad. Learn from their mistakes. Figure out what you could do to recognize the same problem in your own games (much harder to do because you are so close to it), and correct the problem.The only game that truly disgusted me to horribly that I had to return it the next day was Tresspasser - that Jurassic Park game. I had been a fan of Seamus Blackley's other games (even the practically unknown Terra Nova), but Tresspasser was so atrocious I really didn't know where to begin. About the only thing that actually worked with that game was the voice acting. I even wanted to play it out of the belief that it was different and experimental - and the experiment failed miserably. From the horible "waldo" arm interface that would stretch across the level when it got stuck in collision, to the physics that didn't begin to resemble real-world motion (guns that would spin and roll, impossible to stop, down a board with a slight incline), to framerates that were literally 2 frames per second on a reasonably fast, up-to-date machine.
Ugly.
#3
"The world's finest box-stacking simulation made"
And yes, the base physics were there, but the friction wasn't. It was like everything was coated with Teflon, and then greased.
And that horrible control scheme where you had to use the mouse to move your arm, and it getting twisted into what HAD to be the most painful contorsions...
*shudder*
but somehow, I played all the way through it (no, it didn't get any better at the end)
04/20/2006 (2:04 am)
Heh, Tresspasser... The game that got called (and heck if I can remember by whom)"The world's finest box-stacking simulation made"
And yes, the base physics were there, but the friction wasn't. It was like everything was coated with Teflon, and then greased.
And that horrible control scheme where you had to use the mouse to move your arm, and it getting twisted into what HAD to be the most painful contorsions...
*shudder*
but somehow, I played all the way through it (no, it didn't get any better at the end)
Community Manager Scott Burns