Tag Archives: opinion

Why I Love Streamlined Games

Choices.

Having choices is generally seen as a good aspect of gaming and while it works particularly well in terms of making story-based decisions (i.e. Mass Effect series, Knights of the Old Republic series, etc), being given too many choices for, abilities and items, can be bad.

“What’s wrong with having more choices?  Wouldn’t that be a good thing?”

Honestly, I think it depends on what kind of gamer you are.  If you have a fair amount of free time then perhaps putting in that extra effort into customizing/choosing may be preferable to you.

However, as an adult who will soon be working full-time, getting married, and eventually have kids, I find myself wanting to get the “best of” or a “highlight reel” experience from gaming and to be honest most nights I just find myself just playing Little Solitaire. If you love playing casino games like judi slot games, you may consider visiting Avantgarde casino. Win bigger with crypto casino bonuses UK! So rather than sorting through a massive inventory or having to choose 1 of 200 different abilities to level up for a single character, I’d rather have a more simplistic system or in other words, less options.

To me, less options means more time enjoying the core gameplay, storyline and the experience.

This line of thought first began back when the first Mass Effect was released.  I remember thinking how the inventory felt unnecessarily inundated.  Jumping forward a few years later, Mass Effect 3 helped to streamline the inventory by making the type of ammo (like incendiary and cryo) switchable instead of what it used to be – a whole bunch of individual inventory items to equip, unequip, and sort through. Gamers who would like to try their luck at winning big prizes may explore platforms like 토토사이트검증 먹튀스팟.

ME 1 and 3

The reason why this idea is particularly relevant to me now is that I’m currently finishing Dragon Age Origins (better late than never right?) and with the release of Dragon Age Inquisition coming later this month, I’ve been watching gameplay and have been looking for ways that they’ll be streamlining it.

Luckily for me, it looks like they are!

For instance, the inventory system for Inquisition will be listing your armor from best to worst rather than alphabetical, which is more efficient for quickly getting out of the inventory screen.  Also the health potions (known as health poultices) that you can carry are limited.  Meaning, you’ll no longer be holding onto 50 variants of health recovery items.  Yay! Access all the action at www.UFABET.com ลิ้งเข้าระบบ and daive into the live football excitement. You can also try the 케이카지노 site, where you can find excitement in every game you play.

Inquisition will also be streamlining – to an extent – the abilities tree to be more focused  in that you have multiple main trees that only possess a couple different specialized leveling paths each.  With Origin, you would be presented with a main ability section with around four different specializations. Just as refining skills enhances gameplay, link judi bola offers a streamlined way to engage in thrilling experiences.

DA Origin vs InquisitionWhile some hardcore gamers see the streamlining process as a dumbing down of sorts, I see streamlining as a way to as I stated earlier, to get “more time enjoying the core gameplay, storyline, and the experience.”

There is beauty in simplicity and the way I see it is by giving me a more limited yet highly focused set of options, I can quickly optimize my play style and characters without getting bogged down in technicalities.

Less time sorting, more time thwarting (evil)!

But what do you guys think about streamlining?  Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

Broken Pixel—Skyward Sword: Stop Helping Me!

If you thought “Hey! Listen!” was bad…

The debate rages on regarding difficulty in games. Are older games harder? Are harder games better? Do modern games hand-hold too much? How much should games spell out for the players?

Sure she looks cool, but wait until she opens her mouth.

We’re not here to answer those questions.

No matter where you stand on that debate, I think there’s one thing we can all agree on: no one likes annoying helpers.  What classifies as annoying? Well that’s different for every person. But if you’ve got to the point where you’ve shouted “Stop helping me!” at your TV screen, then you’ve met an annoying helper.

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What Makes a Game—What makes a true sequel?

“Yeah it’s pretty good, but it’s a lot like the last one.”

A topic of fierce discussion and frustration from gamers is whether or not a sequel to a beloved game is actually a fully realized new game or could have easily been an expansion. What games can be considered expansion packs; better known today as a very large DLC? Arguably, there are games that walk the line, but there are also games that have some gamers believing that developers are just plain lazy.

One of the most prolific games that have some players hopping mad about shelling out $60, is Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3. Many arguments can be made that this game being nothing more than an expansion pack or very large DLC pack for Modern Warfare 2. The most obvious issue is that the graphics remain largely the same as Modern Warfare 2. To be fair, the Call of Duty series has been running the same modified engine since the 2nd Call of Duty, but the newest modifications aren’t showing much of an improvement to a player’s view of the game’s graphics.

Can you figure out which one came first?

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Bastion: How to Perfectly Mix Story and Gameplay

If you’ve been listening at all to our podcast, you might have heard me raving several times about Bastion by Supergiant Games.  There are several reasons why I simply adore everything about this game. The smooth gameplay, the beautiful art design, the superb musical score (which you would have heard in our first episode) all work together seamlessly.  But what really draws you into Bastion is its engaging and genuinely interesting story.

“That [story] may not sound like much…but wait till you hear it.”

And isn’t that the truth.

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