Quote:Original post by nilkn
But as for just totally screwing it up like they did with the second--this is beyond my understanding, unless the changes were forced on them by some business executives having control over the project who thought they would make more money by dabbling in things they don't understand.

Yep, this is exactly how things work. These executives (or strategic business development, as it is called) know a great deal - about making money. And that's what modern AAA games are all about. Nobody really cares about the artistic experience, immersiveness of the storyline and general excellence of a game. As in any big business sector, it's all about the bottom line.

Dumbing down games widens the available target audience and increases market penetration. If consumer testing reveals that x% more revenue can be generated by making a game (or any product really) idiot compatible (ie. number of sales gained by new idiots > number of lost sales by disappointed veterans) then it will be done. 'Dumb' games are also less expensive to manufacture than more complex games.

I consider Deus Ex to be one of the best games ever made and I went back to try and play it again not too long ago. God damn, the first couple hours of that game are freaking terrible. Honestly, inferior as it may be overall, Invisible War holds up a lot better in terms of playability. It's much easier to get into and you don't have to micromanage as much pointless crap for no reason.

Which is not to say IW is better... just that it's not without merit. Old PC gamers are too quick to assume that cumbersome = better. IW didn't fail because of streamlining; IW failed because they ruined the level design since they couldn't do anything decent in the Xbox's pitiful amount of RAM with the graphic quality they were shooting for. That was a stupid design decision. A lot of their other decisions were actually pretty nice, but it was hard to tell because of the lackluster levels.

Regenerating health is not necessarily dumb. It certainly can be used that way, and probably will, but it's unwise to blame the mechanic for bad designers. Regenerating life is a great way to enable the level designers to make more interesting encounters and not burden the player with having to run around searching for health packs all the time and not risk having the player get completely stuck because they ran out.

If you blindly think regen is bad you're just being old. Kids these days! In my day I had to walk five miles to find a health pack in the snow with no shoes and I damn well enjoyed it.

Biggest thing I missed in IW that I know is never coming back and it makes me tremendously sad: Getting XP for finding secret areas. It was a great mechanic that encouraged and rewarded exploration and thoroughness. I wish someone else would use it again one day.