Comments on: Responsible for Your Own Fun

By: Jonas

Jonas — Tue, 27 May 2008 07:54:45 +0000

Yeah it’s pretty hard to compare the HL games to the GTA games because the HL games use their level design to funnel you down a linear path, whereas GTA is a completely open world – any geometry which is there at one point must be there at any other time in the game as well. You can add a road block here and a police blockade there, but it’d be pretty awkward to funnel the player in a particular direction half-way through the city, and even if you managed it, it’d sort of defy the whole point of having an open-ended city and thus attract actual heavy criticism from yours truly.

I think the best way to do this mission would’ve been to let the bikers actually start right near the entrance to the subway tunnel, so they could’ve gone down that way before I had a chance to shoot them. And then maybe put 4-5 of them instead of just 2 so at least a couple had a solid chance of making it through the tunnels alive.

By: EER

EER — Mon, 26 May 2008 07:37:27 +0000

That’s only because HL2+ (can’t remember 1) does not *have* a wrong path to go down

By: Gelo

Gelo — Sun, 25 May 2008 03:24:15 +0000

I’d say that it’s just poor/lazy mission design. There’s plenty of ways to get a player to go down “the right path” without making enemies invincible. Just look @ the HL series.

By: EER

EER — Sat, 24 May 2008 06:17:58 +0000

I agree with fox, while there is not specifically something wrong with scripting a mission so that it will turn out some way, the immersion breakage is not acceptable, imho.

By: fox

fox — Fri, 23 May 2008 22:12:14 +0000

No the fun comes exclusively out of pissing on your own sandcastle. Trust me, I’ve tried it both ways. (Mike Arthur…Smike ? Nah…can’t be…or…No, I must accept it! He’s gone. They… did… this… to him. Pigs.)

I don’t understand why they didn’t force it to to you in a more honest way – like blocking your way or something that is less immersion breaking.

By: Jonas

Jonas — Fri, 23 May 2008 13:35:14 +0000

Yeah the thing about GTA4 is that I can’t really imagine myself starting over on it when I’m done. However, since it has a couple of dynamic mechanics (such as spawning random crimes for you to handle if you have a police car) and extra little bonus things (like hiding random stunt jumps or pigeons that you have to kill or cars that you have to steal), I can see myself playing it for quite a while after I’m done with the story. We’ll see, of course.

Oh and I guess pissing on sand castles can be a lot of fun, but only if it’s somebody else’s castle, right? And pissing on other people’s sand castles is what GTA4 is all about

By: Mike Arthur

Mike Arthur — Fri, 23 May 2008 12:13:57 +0000

Personally I find it very fun to piss on sand castles you judgemental sod!

(serious mode)
I totally agree about the replayability point and that’s why I rarely ever replay or even play very linear games any more because all the fun of the replay is taken out by it being EXACTLY THE SAME.

By: Jonas

Jonas — Fri, 23 May 2008 11:45:18 +0000

Well the problem is that the sequence is pretty clearly more exhilarating and nervewracking when you’re at the controls than if it were just an extended cutscene. Rockstar generally limit cutscenes to briefings and character interaction, which is a smart move – you never see Niko do something really really cool in a cutscene, so there’s no opportunity to shout “ARGH WHY WON’T YOU JUST LET ME DO IT!?” at your monitor. Rockstar are happy to code up some pretty elaborate minigames that seem to only appear once (like climbing that truck with the weed! What the hell!?), so they don’t need to use cutscenes for action scenes.

But uh as I was saying, it wouldn’t have been nearly as cool if it were just a cutscene.

Another side of the dilemma is this: If they hadn’t specifically scripted it but the AI had just decided to flee throught he train tunnels, that would’ve made it approximately 1800% more amazing because this fantastic action scene would’ve emerged out of the interaction of the gameplay systems. But on the other hand, then the chance of that happening would’ve been tiny, and only very few people would experienced it – to everybody else, it would’ve been Just Another Chase.

By: EER

EER — Fri, 23 May 2008 11:15:19 +0000

I agree that you should be able to kill the bikers, whenever wherever. I do not really agree with your doubts. If they want to MAKE you do something you do not really want, they could make a cutscene (driving into the tunnel perhaps).

Note that I don’t know the mission or the layout of Liberty City V3.0 so I don’t know how fucking awesome it is. But still.