100% one of my favorites of all time. Newer Mario Kart iterations never quite hit that same vein of fun, though I could never figure out why. Probably something to do with it being a formative part of my childhood?
Also, my best racer was always Bowser: slow acceleration, but could make everyone spin out at a glancing blow was my way of winning 😂
I think Mario Kart 64 is honestly just very foundational of a Mario Kart. Besides the controls being iffy, it really just plays well, has solid all around courses, music, and a nice selection of characters. Plus it’s where we see a lot of the modern powerups i think
Heal-over-time systems in CoD-like shooters lack feedback and are unreliable in terms of measuring difficulty of a task and feeling like you did something special. Everything becomes boringly average.
I thought Halo CE’s system of shields plus health was a neat innovation. Shields regenerate, health does not. Health is basically a buffer for survivability when shields go down, but you can survive combat at low health as long as you’re watching your shields.
The sound cues for shields low/down/regenerating provide a lot more feedback, too.
I’ve not played a newer or older Mario Kart game with better fundamentals. I’d like more tracks for it but other than that it’s perfect. The newer ones are pretty but there’s too much going on in many of the tracks (and I’m really not fond of the flying/water thing they do either).
Spaghetti Kart (The Recompilation I play on) has a Track Maker i think and i believe you can share tracks between players, but i’m not sure how good any of the custom tracks are.
The newer ones are pretty but there’s too much going on in many of the tracks (and I’m really not fond of the flying/water thing they do either).
I do agree though about the newer ones, it has way too much going on in the courses. Furthermore, Me and My friends are in disagreement but i think the roster is too big and there’s too many tracks
When rebinding the keys, the game wont let me save the changes unless everything has something assigned.
During character creation the lightning on the model is completely different what you will see in game and I end up with an ugly character (Dragon’s Dogma, Saints Row 3 remaster, etc.)
Indepth tutorials told by dialogue boxes. Run 5 steps.
[Hey player!]
[You know some boxes can be moved right?]
[Just walk up to the box]
camera pans 3 feet to the left to show the box in the centre of the screen
[Press X to grab it]
[And when youre done press X to let go]
[Im sure youll find many uses for this during your adventure]
[Why not try it on that box over there?]
<hmmmm. Seems like im going to need to move that box if I want to get anywhere>
When you get near the box a massive X symbol flashes madly and unmissably above your head, and theres lines on the floor showing where it needs to be pushed to, which is also the only way its programmed to move, literally impossible to do wrong, and you push it like 5 feet.
[Wow! You did it! Looks like you can get to the next area now!]
<I should probably remember that, it could be useful in the future>.
You’re now free to play the game, all the way to the next room, where you’ll spend way longer than necessary learning something a fucking 4 year old could figure out, and you dont even need figured out because its been a staple of games since before you were even born.
I know there are folks out there who are profoundly bad at games, and that’s who these things are made for. I’m reminded of that one gaming journalist who gave Cuphead a bad review because he couldn’t figure out how to double jump and never got out of the tutorial.
But just make it a quick selection when starting a new game. “I’m new here, show me guides” and “I’m an expert, skip tutorial content”. Or even just make the tutorials an optional object interaction in the game that you don’t have to touch if you’ve already figured it out.
But the best games are the ones that teach players how to play organically. Level 1-1 in Super Mario Bros is the common example. Setting the camera controls in the older Halo games was also a work of genius. Newer games are a bit too dense to be able to cover everything quite as quickly and organically as Mario, but you can still offer some similar diegetic hints and just add a little “Help” button for anyone who can’t figure it out on their own.
Yep. Not to say that people who struggle with games aren’t valid or there shouldn’t be accessibility options to cater to them, but when writing professionally about games, you should be a near-expert in how to play those kinds of games, at least at their baseline difficulty.
It’s fine to say “I don’t quite get this game, but I’m sure there are people who do and who enjoy it.” But that can’t be a “review.” When you’re a reviewer, you’re supposed to be an authority. If you admit to not being an authority, then you’re not quite qualified to review it.
It shouldn’t honestly matter, but knowing how many publishers tie aggregated review metrics to their developers’ wages/bonuses/raises (or even if anyone gets to keep their jobs at all), it’s crazy for a publication to have journalists who don’t actually know how to play games just reviewing them on vibes alone. It’s too easy to run the risk of not understanding a core part of the gameplay and just assume it’s the game that’s wrong instead of me (because I want to continue getting paid to review games). So I assign it a negative score because my lack of understanding made the game feel bad, and then a level designer somewhere loses their bonus because the aggregate score was half a point lower than the total stipulated in their contract.
I’m souring on difficulty options lately. How am I supposed to know the ideal difficulty of a game without having played it before? You’re the developer, you designed it and if you’re confident in your game balance you should pick the default difficulty. Better yet, get rid of discrete difficulties and add customizable assist mode instead.
Whilst I didn’t enjoy the mechanics of Control, I was very impressed at the settings it offered. I could essentially turn off combat if I wanted. Yes, it won’t be the same game experience, but if I choose to play that way - let me!
In the old days we had cheat codes for this stuff. I cheated my way through a lot of games and then revisited later without cheats. Some of those became my favourite games of all time (Theme Hospital and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 both spring to mind).
By playing the game and adjusting as needed to the experience you are having. That’s what difficulty options are there for. Only you can decide what that is. No one can or should dictate that for you.
While I do change them if I feel things are seriously off, I don’t think changing the settings mid-playthrough is the solution. It is normal for the same game to have different difficulties at different times so if you’re adjusting difficulty mid fly on a first playthrough you probably won’t get the same highs and lows as intended. It is impossible to know from the first stages how the difficulty ramps up, sometimes they are easier, sometimes they are just mechanically simpler and sometimes they are purposefully difficult so you have to learn key mechanics.
Difficulty options are like consumable potions to me if that makes sense
Gaming experience is subjective. The highs and lows are entirely dependent upon the player and their preferences/capabilities.
It’s your experience, no one else’s. The experience is either fun or frustrating. If it is frustrating, then adjust until it is fun. It’s just that simple. For some, a brick wall challenge is fun and enjoyable, for others, it is time consuming and tedious. Both players are valid and both should have the option to play a game the way they want
The “highs and lows” should come from the storytelling, not the gameplay loop. The gameplay loop should always be fun, engaging, and enjoyable for the player.
Games that refuse to let you change the difficulty once you begin a game. More broadly, single player games that worry too much about preserving some sort of honor associated with doing well and make it annoying to play. Like rougue likes that have no save and quit for fear of people save scumming.
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