inGame footage of various games. In the future I hope to add reviews. ^_^

Introducing my current favorite on how developers can skillfully destroy fun that was probably there.

Borderlands

Borderlands is an ego shooter with comic graphics (aka cell shading) and roleplaying-like character development (the diablo-like rpg ... not the D&D-like type).

The game in itself is your standard half-life experience if it wasn't for details like experience points, weapons of the same type with random bonuses ("enchanted" weapons) and an extensive skill system. It's decent and plays like you might expect from a mix of Diablo 2, Half-Life and (at least flavor wise) Fallout 3.

And how did they screw it up?

It starts with starting the game. You get to enjoy the typical string of vendor trailers no one ever wants to see. Unskippable. Yes, everytime you start that game you wast 2 minutes watching for the umpteenth time that someone made something for some game. And unless you know how to edit a config file, you'll be indoctrinated forever.

Then comes character creation ... or rather selection. You can choose between 4 different classes - each with their different skill set and starting weapons. But since you don't start with any skillpoints whatsoever, character creation is very easy: Select class. Should take about 1 second.

But it doesn't take 1 second. It takes about 5 minutes.

Yes, for every new character you want to make, you have to watch a really really boring intro video (the words "Power Point" come to mind). And that was not fucking necessary. And it was especially not necessary to make it unskippable!! (Note: PC Users: Deleting certain movie files helps. XBOX Users: suck it).

And then - finally - you start the game. Or do you? Nooo, you have to endure the tutorial, of course. The first part of the tutorial essentially explains how to

1. Move (WASD)
2. Shoot (LMB) and aim (RMB)
3. Jump (Space)
4. Crouch (C)
5. Pickup Items and talk to NPCs (E)
6. Reload (R)
7. Melee Attack (V)

And now do ask yourself in all honesty: Do you really need 10 minutes to explain that to anyone over the age of eight? I mentioned the age of eight because that's how old you have to be to appreciate the humor of the "funny little robot" (yeah, that's a quote from the game) that serves as your guide. The tutorial was boring, of course. Even the first time.

And the most interesting part of the game - the unique and extensive skill system which makes even playing the same character worth replaying from scratch (theorhetically) can't even be accessed before you hit level 5 ... which takes quite a while. Maybe 40 minutes or even longer. One has to ask himself: What the hell were the first four levels good for? Apart from wasting time, that is. So what we have here is a mandatory tutorial lasting nearly an hour for every time you want to start a new character.

And get that: The developer even dared to criticize Fallout 3 because it made "mistakes".

 


Comments (Page 1)
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on Oct 30, 2009

You know what else sucks about Borderlands? The extreme lack of interactivity with the environment. Not to mention the lack of physics. I saw a bottle on top of a barrel and tried to shoot it off. Not only did the bottle not fall off the barrel, but it didn't even shatter when shot....Wtf?!?!?!

Unless you're into repetitive shooters with guns and a lack luster take on the Diablo weapon hunt, skip it.

on Oct 30, 2009

Fallout 3 integrates character creation with the tutorial while providing storyline elements pretty nicely, and it even creates a save automatically before the "was your childhood satisfactory?" window (as Yahtzee put it  ) so you can skip it in the future, seems much better to me than an unskipable, stating-the-obvious, required-for-every-character tutorial.

 

Unskipable tutorials, manufacutrers logos and intro videos should be illegal. Also, many games have made the tutorial part separate of the main game, which propably would have worked with this game. If you can't make it skipable, make it separate

on Oct 30, 2009

There are two other things that really bug me about Borderlands.

1. The explosions. You should not have to directly hit the enemy for a rocket launcher to do damage. And the rocket on top of the car sucks even more. It's more effective to just run things over then even bother with trying to shoot them.

2. The ending to the story. It's kind of a lame story to begin with, but the ending is just "WTF??!!?" I won't spoil it for anyone, but it basicly doesn't answer any questions you have. Seriously, not a single one.

on Oct 30, 2009

The tutorial part is the worst:

The most interesting part of the game - the unique and extensive skill system which makes even playing the same character worth replaying from scratch (theorhetically) can't even be accessed before you hit level 5 ... which takes quite a while. Maybe 40 minutes or even longer. One has to ask himself: What the hell were the first four levels good for? Apart from wasting time, that is. So what we have here is a mandatory tutorial lasting nearly an hour for every time you want to start a new character.

I had the WTF moment right from the start.

(added that part to the OP)

on Oct 30, 2009

Another game: Ceasar 4.

I understand that wanted to make it more customizable, but in terms of building things that need to interact with eachother (water systems, roads, people on roads) have a grid structure is really helpful. If you want to let me rotate things, great let me do it after i get it placed correctly instead of making me rotate it first.

Zoning was a success in simcity2000, and ceasar 3, why in gods name would you make me place each house individually now?

ceasar 3 - fun

ceasar 4 - coaster.

on Oct 30, 2009

Another game: Assassin's Creed. Fantastic game, with a gameplay that makes simple exploring fun, and an incredible amount of openness in its missions... with a roughly half-an-hour long mandatory introduction where 30% of the time is spent listening to a woman teach you how to move, 10% is actually making said movements, and the remaining 60% of the time is spent staring at the multiple loading screens. Seriously. "Move forward with the W button" *presses W* "You moved! congratulations" *loading*. Repeat ad nauseum.

on Oct 30, 2009

Yeah, that made me want to quit.

But "luckily" the replay value of Assassin's Creed was low, so you didn't have to suffer that tutorial much more than once.

 

 

on Oct 30, 2009

StarWars battlefront.

Gameplay is fun, controls are generally pretty self explanitory. Depth of gameplay was extremely minimal. ffs counterstrike has more thought involved and more repeat playability. single play or co-op was simple, and has like 5 levels. vs mode was the exact same thing. you just duke it out over th same boring maps for however long it takes you to win.

and then 2 came out. awesome new levels! new units! space battles! oh wait, only 5 or 6 new levels? oh... like 1 new unit? and the way to win the space battles was to fly your ship extremely poorly with terrible control into another ships hanger bay and then fight fps style?

between this, indiana jones crystal skull and the 3 new star wars movie; i think we have seen definitive proof that george lucas hates us all and thinks we are idiots for liking his movies.

on Oct 30, 2009

DraekAlmasy
Another game: Assassin's Creed. Fantastic game, with a gameplay that makes simple exploring fun, and an incredible amount of openness in its missions... with a roughly half-an-hour long mandatory introduction where 30% of the time is spent listening to a woman teach you how to move, 10% is actually making said movements, and the remaining 60% of the time is spent staring at the multiple loading screens. Seriously. "Move forward with the W button" *presses W* "You moved! congratulations" *loading*. Repeat ad nauseum.

y

Only problem I had with assassin creed was the game play was repetitive, I liked the story idea but you literally did the same thing up til near the end. I spent more time killing random people, climbing random buildings; while listening to the song "It's too late to apologize." Even the fact there wasn't a way to customize didn't bother me as much.

on Nov 01, 2009

About the Borderlands pre-game vendor videos - those ARE skippable. You have to dig into the ini files to get to it, but it's extremely easy  CTRL+F and adding ';' before each appropriate line.

What does  irk me is that the UI is quite PC-unfriendly. I can't use the mouse scroll for in-game menus? Wow.

 

Also, I don't know how you aim, but I found it really easy to use the vehicular rocket launcher. The splash is smaller than you'd expect and I think hit registration is a little buggy but I find that if you shoot so that it hits their feet it should register.

on Nov 01, 2009

52500


and then 2 came out. awesome new levels! new units! space battles! oh wait, only 5 or 6 new levels? oh... like 1 new unit? and the way to win the space battles was to fly your ship extremely poorly with terrible control into another ships hanger bay and then fight fps style?

 

I never played online with this game, but I thought it was very fun. You forgot to mention how awesome the hero units were. Their was also some decent other game modes in this one as well.

 

As for the game with the most user unfriendlyness, I have two of may favorite games up their. Rome: Total War (you have to finish the tutorial to play a campaign, very rare for a strategy game) and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (I shouldn't have to play for a half and our to get a sword and shield ).

on Nov 01, 2009

RE: borderlands... I have to agree on certain points.  It's kind of a no-brainer that you shouldn't have to watch the opening videos everytime (nvidia, etc).  Sure, force it on us the 1st time around, but then never again.  Instead, I had to search for a forum post and found that if I deleted 3 files, then I wouldn't have to watch them again.  So, I did.  Issue resolved with minimal pain.   

I don't really care about the having to watch the opening several times as I create new characters.  Sure, it would be nice to skip all of that, but I can handle losing 10 minutes.  I'd rather not, but it's not that big a deal to me

The in game voice chat is painful... no way to tweak it that I know of.  You can disable it by editing an INI file, but there is no on off in game... which is pretty weak.  Particularly annoying the first time I heard 1 player broadcasting his system sounds non-stop via voice chat.  No way to squelch in game.  Nice that they added the feature, but I'd have preferred they release a good implementation of this.

The online server browser is also pretty weak.  All of that said, its not a horrible experience.  The problems outweigh the fun I'm currently having...

on Nov 01, 2009

I find that games which are cross-platform usually suck in one or two crucial areas. Probably because most such games are made for consoles and then ported to PC - while it should be the other way around. Be it clumsy or poorly responsive controls, lack of configuration options, poor optimization or closed-up, linear level design (with the console favourite - the Invisible Wall(tm) feature!), games like these just don't cut it on PC.

on Nov 01, 2009

I find that some people are really easy to bug.

 

Borderlands is an imperfect beast in more ways than one, to be sure, but I didn't find anything all that rant-worthy that I couldn't find with most other games.

 

As to the voice chat, I believe they said that's being worked on for the first patch.

on Nov 21, 2009

No game is perfect, but stuff like what the op mentioned is so easy to avoid...it's like the devs give no thought to what the user experience will be like.

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