  JUst Out OF Curiousity and into Confusion | 
Posted - 8/21/2006 1:02:08 PM | So, I've been reading 3D Game Engine Architecture for a while, a long with a series of other books. I generally use them as references to look upon as I'm designing. Anyways, I was looking for information on game timers and I ended up getting side tracked when I really noticed that David Eberly designed his own RTTI(Run Time Type Information) system for the engine Wild Magic(I had read that section before, but it didn't really stick out previously). I just got to wondering, isn't the inate support that C++ provides enough? It's a trend throughout the book that he does create a lot of his own custom systems, but too me, this one seemed like over kill, and the over head involved in the system seemed really redundant and rediculous. I could be missing something here, so if anyone could suggest to me the advantages of creating such a system, I'd be much obliged.
Also, I played WoW for the first time this past weekend. I wasn't very impressed. I liked the concept, the idea of various lands and servers being those lands, continents ect.., I liked the setting , I'm a fan of Warcraft, I liked the aesthetics, very nice quality graphics, especially for such a massive game. What I did not like was the simplicity of the interface, the 2D aspects of the PvP characters(beleavabilty wise), although I do suppose it's the other characters that are supposed to make up the relational aspect of the world, I didn't really get into that so I suppose that could have taken away from the experience. I also didn't like the interface for combat, I was a level five after three hours of playing, but I don't know, it just seemed to be missing something. I wondered for a while if it was because of the low level attacks and such, me being a lowly level five rogue, but I then came to conclusion that it was simply the interface. Turn based action in a multi user environment just doesn't appeal to me I guess, and also the lack of control for the character, as far as movement went. The mix between action controls but then purely turn based combat, I have to say I'm not a big fan. It's ok though, if I got sucked into a game such as that, I'd never get anything done, and I'm sure ( at least I hope) that when the new Team Fortress Classic comes out this winter, I'll have some great online game playing at my finger tips once again.
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| I'm Color Blind | |
Posted - 8/5/2006 9:36:14 AM | The green just died in my monitor. I've been wanting to buy an LCD monitor for a while, but I can't afford it until next pay check, which is two weeks away. The world is a much darker place without green and ninja turtles just don't look right. IS it cold in here, or is it just me?
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| Worst Game Ever | 
Posted - 8/3/2006 10:38:43 AM | I went to one of what I consider to be the most evil places on earth last night before work, with the intention of buying a new game. I went to Walmart because it's the only place open in my town at 12:30am and I had an urge to buy a game. I was thinking possibly Half Life Episode One, but as I looked through the array of FPS and RTS games, I realized that I was kind of tired of these genres as most games I have are either one or the other of these. It has been many a year since I last played a great adventure game, I thought to myself at the time. Amongst the selections there was but one adventure game, and it looked very promising. The game of which I saw is called Keepsake, and it boasted of various details that drew my attention. This is where the marketing guys did a really good job for this game, because short of some decent graphics and cinematics that remind me of Final Fantasy 7( the blur effects and slightly choppiness of the animations any ways) this game has proven to me to down right suck midget rocky mountain oysters.
I've never experienced such a frustrating time with a game interface in my twenty years of being a gamer(that's right I started playing when I was three). One button to rule them all, the actions of the game. THat's right the entire game interaction is done with the left mouse button. Then there's the terrible fixed camera angles and frustrating navigation. You try to get the character to move to the next scene but if you don't locate the exact location of where to place the cursor in the game world, you just see a big red X and you can't navigate.
I spent two hours playing this game, to really try and give it a chance. I was turned off from the start for the above mentioned reasons, and then, things just got worse. Going back to the box description, it speaks of a vast campus for your character to explore, and too be honest, I only probably explored about a fourth of it. Why is that you may be wondering. Well, because this is the most fucking linear game that I've ever played, but it does it in a wannabe 3d setting. I say wannabe because aside from the terrain and the characters, the world possess no true 3D objects nor can you really interact with any of the objects in the game world, well except with a few of the puzzle elements, with your left mouse button of course.
Anyways, back to the game play. SO.. your given a chance to initally explore a decent size section of this school campus, but all the doors to other sections are locked, ect... I spent about oh 30 minutes going from one side of the campus to the other and then back before I found the story element that I had to do in order to progress any part of the game. I mean any part. It still gets worse. There are puzzles situated all throughout the game world that Lydia, the main character must solve. But get this, if you haven't followed the way the designer expected you to play this game to a T, nothing will happen. You can solve the puzzles mind you, but when you do, it tells you "You don't have the prequisites to continue. What a mind screw. That is the biggest tease in gaming history and one of the most frustrating things I've ever experienced. There was a puzzle that took me 45 minutes to solve. It was obviously solved as it was litteraly a puzzle, arrange all the pieces to form a picture type of thing. Anyways, I go to pull the lever to signal completion and turn on the schools water pump, and ... nothing.
I have one thing to say to the guys at The Adventure Company .. namely the designers Bruno Parenteau and Ben Thomas and that is this. It is a sin against humanity to create a seemingly openended world, and then expect gamers to follow completely linear interaction with every single interactable thing in the game world. For breaking this rule and forcing me to waste $30 US dollars and 2 and a half hours of my life that I will never get back you guys get the title of Shitiest Designers of all time and Keepsake gets the stamp of Worst Game Ever.
Oh and of course I can't get my money back, because I got it from Walmart, I can't even exchange it for a different game because you can only exchange it for the same game.
If anyone wants to know how not to design a game I recommend buying Keepsake. Any one trying to teach game developement should use this game as the example of how to ruin a good idea.
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