Boom! Headshot!!
Quick Traversal
No matter what size map you’re on, making it easy to get around is a big deal. When it’s easy to get around, it makes even a map as big as the one in Just Cause 2 feel manageable. Far Cry 2 had one of the worst maps in a game. Sure, it was pretty and really big, but traversal was horrible. It took forever to get anywhere, and any hill steeper than a pile of elephant droppings was impossible to get over, so you were confined to driving around on the roads. Even more frustrating was the fact that an enemy jeep would come by every 5 seconds and shoot you and disable your jeep. Now, you have to get out, kill the guys, tighten that one bolt on the radiator to fix the damn thing, and then drive 10 more feet to encounter another jeep. This is horrendous level design. If I want to get to a location, I should be able to get there without the game fighting me every step of the way. In Just Cause 2, I’ll occasionally be parachuting over a military base and guys will start shooting at me, but if I don’t want to engage them I don’t have to, and it requires no effort to just ignore them and continue on my way. Just because I have the option of doing everything in an open world game, doesn’t mean I want to do everything all the time. There are times when I do just want to run around and shoot guys, and there are times when I want to do missions. Any game that makes me do something I don’t want to do goes into a special filing cabinet next the dumpster behind my apartment.
Giving Us Nostalgic Moments
I recently got my hands on a PR copy of 3D Dot Game Heroes and I am currently in love with the crew at Silicon Studio and Atlus for bringing back all kinds of great memories of my childhood and the gaming I did at that time. It’s just pure bliss to be able to sit down and play a new game with such an old school approach to gameplay. Games like this should remind everyone that a game can be simple in approach and still deliver an amazing experience.
Easter Eggs
What happened to putting Easter eggs in games? Remember when this was common practice? Sure, Grand Theft Auto always puts funny little signs throughout their games, but that’s really just part of the world. I want to see Nathan Drake come across a toy gun that makes a “pew, pew, pew” noise. I want there to be an enemy in Killzone 3 that explodes into confetti when I shoot it; maybe some kind of small, cute woodland creature. In Just Cause 2, there is a pink gun that shoots bubbles. It doesn’t do damage–it just makes bubbles. No matter how much you may enjoy using a bubble gun in real life, using one while standing on the back of a burning jet is a thousand times better. But it seems like developers are starting to get over their fascination with DLC and the wonders of the Internet and are starting to return to some of the older staples of video games. So, maybe I’ll get my wish after all.
Another Great Gaming Story
For the past few years, gamers have been treated to some great stories and really amazing storytelling by Uncharted 1 & 2, Metal Gear Solid 4, Valkyria Chronicles, and now Yakuza 3. Say what you want about the combat in the game or the graphics, buts it’s hard to argue that Yakuza 3 did not boast one hell of a story. The characters were all interesting and had very unique personalities, and the way the story was told brought about a lot of different emotions. It’s very refreshing to see a game really nail this aspect, as sadly so many games tend to forget about telling a good story.
