/v/ - Video Games

Eminem's white though

When a game introduces you to the controls organically instead of throwing up a tutorial, it's a sign that the devs are confident of their work.

>>16684811

>that dumb trend of fartsniffing indie developers plastering what the buttons do on signs in the background

It was like watching a child try to wear his dad's tuxedo.

If corpses stay, that's usually a good sign for me. Extra points if they actually decompose.

>>16684793

Prime kept it reasonably simple enough, though it could get a bit clusterfucked at times

>>16684820

What game ever has them decompose?>>16684820

>>16684811

what do you mean organically, you mean just telling you what to do in on -screen tips as you progress?

>>16684823

>What game ever has them decompose?

Didn't Jet Force Gemini have that?

>>16684823

Centipede.

>>16684822

Haven't played it since I was a kid and I don't remember it being terrible, but I have fond memories of having to inspect the map from every angle while backtracking through it.

>>16684823

Warcraft 1-3.

>>16684823

I can only think of a feww offhand that do so in one way or another. I know I'm forgetting one at least, though. Dwarf Fortress, of course. DCSS, SS13, which sort of just hints at DF. Then there's Startopia, which is somewhat like DF in that they can cause a mess and you have to have custodial services clean them up, extra points for leaving a load of ayy skeletons laying around after some massive illness outbreak or saboteur bombs your station.

On the topic of teaching the player the controls, I fucking despise it when characters in the game start telling you to press a certain button or use the control stick. While I'm usually not a large immersionfag (no HUD retards are beyond stupid; it's there to compensate for your lack of senses like being able to feel), there is nothing that breaks immersion more than having characters telling me how the controls work. It's also stupid as fuck in general, as if they're treating the player character like an infant that doesn't know how to walk or interact with anything. If you need a controller tutorial, just fucking have a small window pop up to explain it, either one that you press something to close or one that just hovers at the corner of the screen for a short bit. And add the option to disable them if needed, though if the tutorial is good you shouldn't need to disable it in the first place.

Something that I like? When you can interact with things in the game world in ways beyond "press key to do thing". The two 3D Fallouts, for whatever flaws they have, are really good on that point. You can pick up anything that isn't nailed down, and often you need to do it to find hidden things. Being able to lift up a wooden box and turn it upside down to make a hidden stash fall out is great. Stalker also has a bit of that interactivity and loot being actually hidden in the environment, rather than stashed in convenient treasure chests or, even worse, completely invisible so that you need to mash the search button as you move around. You can't physically interact with things in Stalker beyond shooting at them unfortunately, though.

>>16684848

Stalker has the issue of caches being empty until you find a PDA with info on it, then they magically have items in it. That shit's just retarded, they should be full of items to begin with.

>>16684824

Lolno I mean where you're given the conditions to learn by practice in the first few minutes of the game. It's an arcade design approach. Basically designers had to pack everything the player needs to know into the first couple of moments of the game because the industry sweet spot was something like 2.5 minutes of play for 1 quarter. Any longer and the profit is sub-optimal, any shorter and the player feels ripped off.

>>16684871

M&M urban legends are some weird shit

Greens are an aphrodisiac, Blues are poison because of radioactive dye.

>>16684953

Does that mean I'm going to die a horny cancer patient?

>>16684959

Yes.

You can find books in-game with supplemental material that's actually helpful. Like books on monsters in The Witcher that tell you monster weaknesses, or books on bookshelves in old JRPGs that hinted at puzzle solutions or lead you to treasure.

Extra double bonus points for bestiary entries and encyclopedia mechanics that you can fill out as you play through the game.

>>16685015

It helps a lot when there's some actually character to it too. Just compare the in game info in FF12 and then 13.

>>16682915

That's strange OP, considering Mega Man Legends is a mediocre turd with bad controls.

>>16682915

There's a few things you can check for before the game even starts:

>Does it have a useful manual?

>Does it let me skip the intros?

>How extensive is the options menu? Can I rebind arbitrary controls? Are there any interesting settings that affect the gameplay, aside from a general difficulty slider?

>How extensive are the in-game graphics options? If a game actually has useful graphics options even on consoles, that's a really good sign.

>Is tumblr making fanart of it?

Once you get into the game:

>Does the game check whether you're actually using that gamepad it detected, or does it continue to display Xbox buttons even though you've been using keyboard controls the whole time?

>How responsive are the environments? Does every object that looks like it should be interactive actually react when you try to use it (even if that reaction is something simple like a door rattling or a switch sparking)? Does random clutter and vegetation react when you bump into it or attack it?

>Do NPCs and other moving objects have shadows and reflections?

>>16685429

> If a game actually has useful graphics options even on consoles, that's a really good sign.

Superman 64 of all games had a resolution option.

>>16684868

This looks nice. Is this a comiket game?

>>16682934

I take it what's important is what the map shows? The old Doom map doesn't show where anything is, just gives you the layout so you know where you haven't looked, or how to get somewhere relative to where you are. I prefer it that way, is it the same for you?

>>16684811

A good tutorial or hint system is one that doesn't interfere with second-time players. Zelda and Pokemon are good examples of how not to do it, forcing you to stop playing so a character can tell you something you already know how to do. The worst example I've seen was Final Fantasy 13, which dripfeeds its mechanics at a snail's pace because the game is absolutely terrified you might not understand how something works. Playing that game a second time was very unpleasant because of that.

My favorite tutorial is the HelpDesk in Ratchet & Clank. It actually exists in-universe, lets you continue playing while it gives advice on the bottom of the screen, and you can cut it off with a single button press. Hell you can even disable it for good in the options.

>>16688256

FF13 is even worse because the forced tutorials are all fucking awful at explaining anything and if you really want to know how the game works you have to either read the dry as in game codex or go to gamefaqs. For the longest time I had no idea that the debuff class increased and also stalled the chain gauge because the game apparently doesn't think that's useful information despite making you play through multiple chapters where it's borderline required to get through without wanting to kill yourself.

>>16682915

>What are small things that nobody usually pays attention to at all that make you think, "Oh, this game is going to be GOOD/BAD?"

When SJWs bitch about something in the game. If the dev tells them to fuck off the game will have a better chance of being good. If they listen to them it's pretty much a sure thing that game will be shit.

>>16688322

That and all those bizarre moments where you clearly should have an option on what to do and the game just refuses to let you make a choice

There's like two moments where you have more than three characters in the "party" and the fourth character does fucking nothing, they're just eternally benched because you aren't allowed to edit the formation

>>16688256

>My favorite tutorial is the HelpDesk in Ratchet & Clank.

The best part is meeting the Helpdesk lady later in the game, it's such a nice touch.

It's a lot harder to tell if a game was made with love than just subtle signs. But it does help. I always look for extensive graphic options. When the options consist of just resolution, then chances are the devs are not concerned about more than the bare minimum.

>>16688369

And when you finally do get the option to change your party I don't think the game even tells you so good luck getting over the conditioning and actually trying to change your group.

As for what makes me believe a game will be good or bad from the get go, is how the playable character moves. Two examples on either end.

>Super Metroid: Samus moves quite good. She controls very tightly, has a fair amount of secret moves that you can perform, and mastering the platforming is very satisfying although you could get through the game using the very basics.

>Outland: Your starting momentum is really good. So why the fuck does everything else in your moveset completely kill your momentum? Attacking mid air stops you dead in your tracks. Walljumping feels very scripted, like instead of walljumping you enter a cannon that's angled at a 45 degree. The biggest turnoff was one of the later abilities which was a shoulder bash/dash, the fucking thing teleports you like 1mm in front of you, saturates the screen with shittons of bloom and constantly zooms in every time you do it and it feels like one of the worst things to use and look at. Same shit with Guacamelee's attacks stopping your momentum, but at least that game has some really fun platforming puzzles built around said momentum stopping and you can go fast with dodge cancelling.

As a bonus 3D example

>Spyro, who is near perfect in his control and cameras

>Batman: Arkham Knight: Bamham controls like a collection of scripted pre determined setpiece moves. Precise platforming is a colossal pain in the ass and doing anything that deviates slightly from what's meant to be means you'll either fall or the game breaks in trying to put back the pieces of the scripted setpiece. The biggest example of this is trying to enter your car while gliding. The game wrestles the controls of everything from you and plummets you into the ground, the car automatically warps itself to where you're going to be. You can't tell the car to move closer and you yourself divebomb towards it, you can't do something cool like entering the car midair, you can just press L1 and the camera looks downwards and the sound effects go BWOAAAANG and shit.

I'd like to give Super Mario 64 a shot at some point but for some inexplicable reason I despise anything Mario related and I really dislikes the NES titles, despite them being really well made.

>>16688554

Momentum in games in general seems like a lost art. Every fucking indieshit release is just dash spam at most now.

>>16688568

I found the way dustforce works with momentum very nice. It reminds me in a way of N: Way of the Ninja and how well that game handles momentum when it comes to slops and curves, it was so fun. Is N++ any good?

>>16684823

overtime in Quake II, dead enemies accumulate flies

>>16684823

Jagged Alliance 2, when you leave a sector and come back later the bodies are decomposing and have crows eating them.