Sorry for being a bit late tonight, I was feeling unwell earlier in the evening and had to sleep it off.
Lately, I've found myself playing a lot of Hotline Miami, and while it is a fairly short experience, it's not a cut and dry, one-and-done game like a Medal of Honor or an Uncharted title. The number of options you have at any given point in a chapter is staggering, and there's always room for improvement upon your scores and tactics, which is what continually draws me back to it in my spare time.
In a lot of ways, this is what keeps games like the Devil May Cry series, the fighting game genre, and, for a non-video example, Magic: The Gathering, popular. The "only constrained by the rules of the game", of which some can be broken, style of freeform expression, be it through digital combat, crafting efficient, stylish, or hybridized combo attacks, or through your choice of deck archetype, and which cards fill which roles, allows the experience to remain fresh on subsequent plays. This is where player skill also comes into the mix, but the sheer openness of these systems, and the availability of meaningful player choices actually elevates the skill ceiling in such a way that rote optimization, such as remembering spawn locations on a map and having the best-in-slot equipment is not the dominating top-tier stratagem that it is in more finite, constrained titles.
The ability for player creativity to exist in a title is not as easily defined as certain other goals, and that's why I worry that as the development process becomes more rigidly defined under the dominant force of AAA publishers, it will continue to shrink, until it is finally focus tested into oblivion.
In most older titles, most indie games, and the occasional big budget title like Dark Souls and Metal Gear Solid, leaving room for player creativity felt like a key design goal. It was a large component as to why those games were so well received, and whether the lack of that in more recent titles is from modern control freak designers, or the simplicity inherent in the older games is why it is disappearing has yet to be seen.
I do find it interesting that a high percentage of titles that allow for meaningful choices, and player creativity, are often considered "difficult" games. With the rise of popularity of gaming in general, and the increase in "accessibility"(read: dumbing down) of AAA titles, this is an interesting correlation, and a possible clue to the cause of our evaporating options.
If that's what you're into, though, don't let me stop you. Go right ahead and turn your brain off, effortlessly walking through whatever title it is you choose. Until there's a game powered by brain waves that can only be completed in your sleep, however, I will keep demanding more options.
Lately, I've found myself playing a lot of Hotline Miami, and while it is a fairly short experience, it's not a cut and dry, one-and-done game like a Medal of Honor or an Uncharted title. The number of options you have at any given point in a chapter is staggering, and there's always room for improvement upon your scores and tactics, which is what continually draws me back to it in my spare time.
In a lot of ways, this is what keeps games like the Devil May Cry series, the fighting game genre, and, for a non-video example, Magic: The Gathering, popular. The "only constrained by the rules of the game", of which some can be broken, style of freeform expression, be it through digital combat, crafting efficient, stylish, or hybridized combo attacks, or through your choice of deck archetype, and which cards fill which roles, allows the experience to remain fresh on subsequent plays. This is where player skill also comes into the mix, but the sheer openness of these systems, and the availability of meaningful player choices actually elevates the skill ceiling in such a way that rote optimization, such as remembering spawn locations on a map and having the best-in-slot equipment is not the dominating top-tier stratagem that it is in more finite, constrained titles.
The ability for player creativity to exist in a title is not as easily defined as certain other goals, and that's why I worry that as the development process becomes more rigidly defined under the dominant force of AAA publishers, it will continue to shrink, until it is finally focus tested into oblivion.
In most older titles, most indie games, and the occasional big budget title like Dark Souls and Metal Gear Solid, leaving room for player creativity felt like a key design goal. It was a large component as to why those games were so well received, and whether the lack of that in more recent titles is from modern control freak designers, or the simplicity inherent in the older games is why it is disappearing has yet to be seen.
I do find it interesting that a high percentage of titles that allow for meaningful choices, and player creativity, are often considered "difficult" games. With the rise of popularity of gaming in general, and the increase in "accessibility"(read: dumbing down) of AAA titles, this is an interesting correlation, and a possible clue to the cause of our evaporating options.
If that's what you're into, though, don't let me stop you. Go right ahead and turn your brain off, effortlessly walking through whatever title it is you choose. Until there's a game powered by brain waves that can only be completed in your sleep, however, I will keep demanding more options.
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