Dark Sector
Finally got Gamefly to send me Dark Sector last week. For the 2 hours I've invested thus far, I'm not that impressed. The glaive/boomerang mechanic has some potential, but right now its raw usefulness is overshadowed by guns. It a lot of fun to throw and steer the glaive from a first person view, and it can de-torso guys, so it does tend to win out.
The main sticking point I have is the level design. Why is it always the level design? The LDs are eschewing goal driven encounters with lock-downs where you either muddle your way through to the exit or kill guys until a random door opens. For the player to make meaningful decisions, they have to know what they're supposed to be doing in a given situation. Even if those goals are localized and player generated, at least there are goals. In these cases, it's a get from A to wherever linear formula, but you don't know how to get to wherever so you can't form a plan aside from killing things until something happens.
One area in particular dropped me into a dark shaft with 2 inches of water on the floor. Zombie guys kept spawning from this minuscule veneer of liquid as if climbing from the depths of some fathomless bog while I looked for a way to open the door. Some doors occasionally open when you get close and they flash a "hit B to open", some don't.
I had previously learned the "transfer electricity" ability prior to this, and there was a sparking wire I saw somewhere above on my way in, so I thought that might be the gating device.
Turns out that you just had to kill X of the zombies that spawned in endless waves. I got some kind of achievement and the door ratcheted open, its kill counter satisfied.
I realize that this sort of thing is hard to avoid throwing in on occasion, but at least let me know somehow that what I'm supposed to be engaging in is zombie genocide and not looking for some alternate mechanism of escape. At least God of War had those red walls to tell you that you were in arena mode.
Systemic design, goal oriented encounters, useful tools.
In addition to that, the only encounters I've seen so far could have just as easily been incorporated in a game that only involved a gun or two. Nothing aside from a few remote switches have been boomerang dependent systems.
It kind of reminds me of Jon Blow's talk on the ethics of game design and how we're padding these games out with meaningless repetitive encounters to lengthen the experience instead of coming up with mechanics that are inherently enjoyable to use and lend themselves to creating many varied scenarios where the systems can be creatively and emergently combined to give the player the agency and bit of mental exercise he or she deserves. Was that all one sentence?
The main sticking point I have is the level design. Why is it always the level design? The LDs are eschewing goal driven encounters with lock-downs where you either muddle your way through to the exit or kill guys until a random door opens. For the player to make meaningful decisions, they have to know what they're supposed to be doing in a given situation. Even if those goals are localized and player generated, at least there are goals. In these cases, it's a get from A to wherever linear formula, but you don't know how to get to wherever so you can't form a plan aside from killing things until something happens.
One area in particular dropped me into a dark shaft with 2 inches of water on the floor. Zombie guys kept spawning from this minuscule veneer of liquid as if climbing from the depths of some fathomless bog while I looked for a way to open the door. Some doors occasionally open when you get close and they flash a "hit B to open", some don't.
I had previously learned the "transfer electricity" ability prior to this, and there was a sparking wire I saw somewhere above on my way in, so I thought that might be the gating device.
Turns out that you just had to kill X of the zombies that spawned in endless waves. I got some kind of achievement and the door ratcheted open, its kill counter satisfied.
I realize that this sort of thing is hard to avoid throwing in on occasion, but at least let me know somehow that what I'm supposed to be engaging in is zombie genocide and not looking for some alternate mechanism of escape. At least God of War had those red walls to tell you that you were in arena mode.
Systemic design, goal oriented encounters, useful tools.
In addition to that, the only encounters I've seen so far could have just as easily been incorporated in a game that only involved a gun or two. Nothing aside from a few remote switches have been boomerang dependent systems.
It kind of reminds me of Jon Blow's talk on the ethics of game design and how we're padding these games out with meaningless repetitive encounters to lengthen the experience instead of coming up with mechanics that are inherently enjoyable to use and lend themselves to creating many varied scenarios where the systems can be creatively and emergently combined to give the player the agency and bit of mental exercise he or she deserves. Was that all one sentence?
Labels: game design, level design, review
posted by Rich Wilson at 9:38 PM
1 Comments:
All in one sentence? You owe a quarter or two to the mealy-mouth jar!
Post a Comment
<< Home