Developers lie to us constantly. They've got no choice in the matter. Their job is to make the inside of your TV resemble the contents of your wildest dreams, and while minds may be willing, the flesh, budgets and technology involved are weak. Corners are inevitably cut, ambitions down-sized, levels shrunk or blocked off, move-lists reined in, assets junked.
The art of making games accordingly becomes less a matter of creating stuff as disguising what you can't create - reconciling users to the limitations, or even turning those limitations into positives. It's rather elegant, really, but that doesn't mean we should let them get away with it. Here are a few common tricks of the trade.
1. Doors, elevators, security rooms, airlocks
Remember when you entered the prison facility in Deux Ex: Human Revolution DLC pack The Missing Link, and thought: "wow, a fully functioning security screening room, with X-ray vision and laser beams and that"? Remember when you first opened a door on Dead Space's Ishimura, and it made the dial-up modem noise, and the little green hologram thingy span in circles, and you thought: "goodness, what a convincing simulation of super-advanced yet doddery door-opening software"? You, my friend, have been duped.
11 comments so far...
Clanger67 on 10 Feb '12 said:
I don't mind cut scenes most of the time.They give you a chance to sit back and sip your coffee that has gone stone cold and rest your RSI,lol.
Clanger67 on 10 Feb '12 said:
On a more serious note though,while i bet most of it is down to lazy programming they also have the constant battle of the big bad publisher breathing down there necks,to get it out of the door yesterday.I wonder how many of these constraints are down to the devs and how many are the publisher wanting it finished in an unfeasable time scale.
comabob on 10 Feb '12 said:
unskippable cutscenes are the bane of my gaming time
doesnt matter what the game is - being forced to watch cutscenes puts me off playing a good game twice AND can and does stop me from finishing games with either overly complicated/crappy plots (El Shaddai) OR OTT ridiculous stupidity (Shadows of the Damned)
falcon on 11 Feb '12 said:
I don't mind the hidden load screens with doors, lifts, etc because they can make me feel more immersed compared to a game that breaks things up constantly with loading screens that tell me the same old things over and over again. I've been playing skyrim for over 30 hours, I know that nobody knows who built the Skyforge and that there are giant f-ing rats running about the place!!
I think you missed a big way developers deceive us too - DLC. Most extra content isn't really worth the money because of how little time it takes to complete. A good example is the Lair of the Shadowbroker. It costs 800 points, but even taking the time to explore and collect all the new upgrades on insane difficulty, it didn't take very long to finish. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed playing it a lot, but I expected more for £8.
Decent_Jam on 11 Feb '12 said:
Mass Effect 1 was the biggest culprit for lift loading I've ever seen, they limited it to doors in ME2 (which I'm still really impatient with, but it's a vast improvement.)
Loading is a constant irritation really, I like Rayman's style of giving you something mindless to do while it's going on. I think the little touches like that really make a game flow. No idea why Battlefield doesn't load more quickly between rounds either, since it used to load the map at the same time as you could look at the stats but now they are separate screens it's weird.
I think scripted 'random' events are another way developers deceive us. Like when everything is fine and then a pillar just happens to fall across a door you need to get through when you walk up to it.
Clanger67 on 11 Feb '12 said:
They are getting better with it at least.Like with skyrim and gta4 you only get loading when you enter/exit somewhere given the vastness of the game world.Oblivion used to load update as you were moving around the world as well as entering and exiting.So at least they are moving in the right direction.
TJ Doc on 11 Feb '12 said:
Gotta say, though, I did prefer the original's lift rides to the sequel's constant wire frame loading screens.
Maybe ME3 will finally crack it.
Decent_Jam on 11 Feb '12 said:
Hear hear!
SidTheSloth on 12 Feb '12 said:
I wondered myself how on earth ME1 escaped the original article, the worst culprits being the lift in the c-sec building up to the normandy (i don't even know why that's such a big deal to load, it's just a static!!) and the lift inside the normandy itself - the latter is only a small ride but it is painful how slow/long it takes!
I agree with you both about it being preferable to ME2's screens though. Maybe in 1 if they'd padded out the companions 'lift-based dialogue' it wouldn't be so bad - there were a few lines but they could have whole debates in the time it takes the lifts to get to where they're going!? Dragon Age's character interaction is definitely one thing i'd like to see more of in ME seeing as they both borrow from each other.
CunningSmile on 13 Feb '12 said:
Agreed. I quite enjoyed the banter between your companions, but as you approached the end and settled on the same two people it became repetative. Although still less repetative than watching a lift go up and down a wire frame Normandy.
michaelhill2110 on 16 Feb '12 said:
i think the best use of the loading screen is in bayonetta... as far as the face covering thing goes well i find that talking like a power ranger looks silly... you dont move your head when your mouth is uncoverd so y move it when its coverd?? and there is nothing i find more patronising that hints on a loading screen.