I was watching yet another video for Prototype today at work, marvelling how they all look exactly the same yet are claiming to show some new content, when I heard the Exec Producer or whoever it was bragging about how intelligent their Parkouring AI was. The AI for the Player character. The Player character who has environmental interaction AI.
Seriously, what the hell is happening to game design? I am all for making games more accessible to the masses, and taking away player frustration, but when did people cry out that player control and interaction weren’t fun anymore? Accessibility and Fun/Control don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
Did developers mis-translate “NO MORE POINTLESS JUMPING PUZZLES PLZ K THX” to “we don’t want to have to exert ourselves to play your game anymore?” Because I think this is just starting to go too far. I don’t want my guy to automagically start running up walls. I don’t want to take a game that should make me feel like a god and water the controls down so far that all I have to do is push a stick in a direction and the character goes that way, regardless of the verticality or complexity of the surface.
Assassin’s Creed, for instance, took what should have felt like Prince of Persia: Sands of Time’s greatest parkouring challenges (which, for the record, gave me vertigo and crazy adrenaline jitters) and made me feel like I was an olympic gymnast playing on kindergarten playground equipment. There was zero challenge. The only thing you had to worry about was running straight off of a rooftop to your death (or rounding a corner and finding a guard). Climbing actually became a bit boring and even tedious. What, another tower which looks like it should be dangerous but isn’t that I have to climb? I found myself spamming the “A” button and holding the sprint button down just so that there was some semblance of danger.
Now, I can see some execs looking at Creed and thinking “hey, this sold well, we should emulate this shit.” Granted, the tech that allows you to scramble around in Creed is amazing. But it’s just not as fun as it should be. There is hardly any risk, and therefore, hardly any reward once a player gets over the fact that they can pretty much go anywhere they want to point their joystick. Scrambling on a wall requires pretty much the exact same interface as walking on the ground, once you’ve mounted it properly. And let’s be honest with each other here: walking is not terribly exhilarating.
Furthermore, at least in the circles I roll in, designers in general agree that Creed’s parkouring control leaves a lot to be desired, so it makes me wonder why Prototype would want to emulate that.
If you as a player feel that Creed and Prototype (or at least their videos) are the direction games should be heading in control-wise, take a look at this video, and ask yourself if it looks exciting to play:
Exciting? Yes. Unfortunately, the game is playing itself. There is nobody at the controls. The level is designed to push Mario (or in this case Luigi) around, which as amazing as that is, isn’t any fun to play. This is ultimately the direction this control scheme is headed in: a zero button push the joystick and your guy does everything for you level of interaction. Sure, it’s an extreme example, but it’s this “automatic” parkouring crap taken to the ultimate end. And as a developer I feel like we’re wasting an opportunity to give the player a sense of real accomplishment without raising the difficulty bar too much.
It’s a fine line we’re talking about here, certainly, but it’s my hope that developers in general will move a step back towards the “pointlessly difficult jumping puzzles” rather than the “game plays itself” direction it seems everyone’s currently headed in.
I’m keeping my fingers crossed for Mirror’s Edge, but I don’t have high hopes based on what I saw in the teaser vid.
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Wow, I totally disagree. I think you are confusing gameplay types.
If a game is *supposed* to be a platformer, like Mario, then of course, removing all challenge from the platforming makes the game boring. But if the point of the game is not platforming, then removing the extraneous difficulty of navigating the world makes the game.
Let’s ask a question: What fantasy is Prototype trying to fufill?
I can only guess at the answer, but my guess is “To make the player feel like a superhero.” This fantasy fufillment is made stronger by the fact that Alex appears human, as opposed to Radical’s previous games involving the Hulk.
Anyway. If the player is trying to imagine that they are a superhero, fun elements involve battles with hordes of “normal” people, or colossal showdowns with other beings of similar power.
Falling off buildings interferes with this fantasy fulfillment. Having to remember and master controls to allow the character to move around interferes with this fantasy. Navigating around the environment isn’t the *point*. It shouldn’t be difficult, and it definitely shouldn’t be frustrating. The designers should make it as natural and painless as possible; they have succeeded if the player never even thinks about navigation in his world.
Now, I do have a concern with movement AI, that is completely different from your complaint. The problem with AI of this kind is that it is trying to guess what the player wants. In some cases, this guessing is not hard, and the AI can do a good job. But in other cases, there may be ambiguity in the input given by the player, especially if buttons are used for many different context-sensitive purposes. In these cases, player frustration may result because the AI chooses a different action than the player wanted, because the AI can’t read the player’s mind.
Personally, I have this problem with many of the duck and cover games, particularly those with “sticky” cover where your buttons all change function when in cover.
The challenge of the Prototype team is to make the controls feel smooth and natural, and avoid ambiguities as much as possible. The approach they are taking is sound, but it is difficult, and dangerous if they don’t get it right.
Great comment, Chris, but I ‘m not confusing my genres here.
My biggest beef with Creed (besides the giant point of it being a political assassination game rather than the “assassin’s creed.”) was that I never felt like I had control. The controls were smushy when I was on foot, the combat was horrible, and making wall climbing as easy as pushing the stick forward is just silly.
I feel more like a superhero when I control the execution of the maneuvers. What if we played a flight simulator where all of the hard maneuvers were done automatically for you? It would stop being a flight simulator, and wouldn’t be fun in the least bit.
*paff* is the sound of your standard 3rd person action game manual.
*CRASH* is the manual for flightsim 200x.
If the game is about control then by all means, make it complicated, but if its about empowering the player, then dont try and punish us for not having insanely dextrous fingers. I dont want to have to push 7 different buttons to jump. then again, its nice when the game actually gives you the OPTION to jump…ok, Im rambling.
I actually think games oughta go back to simpler, but more robust control schemes. Mario is a good example since the first one only used two buttons and the digipad. while the mechanics were simple, they felt powerful. I could jump 30ft across a chasm and land on a dime. In the current generation theres this tendency to go for something more realistic, which is to say more subtle. when you ‘jump’ in assassins creed, its only 2-3 feet, and to make up for that they added the whole parkour thing which was neat for about 2 hours, but didnt really leave me with the same feeling of power. But comparing assassins creed to mario is like comparing apples to fat people. One has you charging towards an objective, while the other has you running away.
I think Shadow of the Colossus did the whole parkour thing pretty good. It was skill based enough so that if you got good enough at pulling of the more advanced tricks you could fell the games bosses in under a minute, but the controls weren’t complicated enough to leave novice players behind. Even though the colossi were huge, the player still feels in control, and therefore empowered.
I want control, but not too much, otherwise I wont be able to play the game. Yes, we the public are picky.
I think there has to be a balance. Obviously a tricky jumping puzzle in an FPS is more annoying than anything else. I learned this the first time playing Turok on the 64. On the other hand, your example of climbing in Assassin’s Creed is way too much automation.
I played a lot of Unreal Tournament, and the control in that game was so fluid that the excellent map design allowed you to do crazy jumps and dodge up ramps that seem totally impossible if you don’t know how to do it. It all comes back to excellent control as the starting block. If your avatar controls poorly, nothing’s going to be fun for long, even if holding one direction will make them do amazing things on screen.
After reading this post I came upon the latest Sonic Unleashed trailer.
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/35617.html
I noticed that their seems to be alot of timed button pressing without much direct control. I could be totally wrong in my interpretation of the trailer but it shows that certain games like Sonic and those mentioned which value how cool it looks to move around would not want to risk that aesthetic by allowing a player to be clumsy with the controls
I think Sands of Time did an excellent job with the Parkour idea. It gave enough control to the players to make the more difficult parts difficult. I haven’t had a chance to play Assassin’s Creed yet, but it does sound like it does too much for you.
As something kind of related:
Many people have complained that Metal Gear Online requires between 2 and 3 different button presses to fire a weapon. One has to select the weapon, then shoulder it by holding a shoulder button, possibly select an aim mode, then fire.
I think this level of detail actually adds to the game, instead of detracting from it.
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