My main issue with games nowadays and how there's almost no immersion anymore. - Games

I'm going to begin talking about how the nowadays game formula displeases me by bandwagoning right in the recent Aliens: Colonial Marines hate. It's not about how they promised something and delivered something else, or the shitty voice acting, or the shitty animations or blablabla. I'll talk about mechanics that have been used in [I]every single title[/I] that comes out nowadays and how it really takes immersion away from the player. The new aliens game was mediocre. The 2010 AVP was boring, eventhough it felt like they had everything in for a nice game. Why can't they release something nice and [B]simple[/B]? Do you remember how the predator jumps in the AVP game were scripted as fuck and showed exactly where you were supposed to land? Have you seen how there's quicktime events everywhere in this new Aliens game? There are mods out there for Crysis where you play as Predator. They're hacky, sure. But they're simple and the gameplay makes it feel like you're there. There are absolutely zero cutscenes that take away the command from the player, no bullshit quicktime events and no fucking pointers. Quicktime events are the most cock horse gargling things [I]ever[/I]. I can't begin to express how I hate quicktime events. And I'll tell you why: Whenever the MOUSE BUTTON appears in the screen you're subconsciously reminded that you're not a marine, you're not a predator, you're not an alien, you're a fucking dude sitting on a chair playing a game. It KILLS the immersion by suddenly introducing a flashing mouse button or keyboard key into the game universe. You're supposed to see what the character's seeing. Do people see huge A keys when they're running away for their lives? No? I thought so. And don't tell me it's a ~game~ and ~it's not supposed to be realistic~. It just takes you away from the universe you're supposed to be. Now there's also pointers. Bright markers on the screen that show you where to go. Do we really need these? Or have developers completely forgotten how to make their games self explanatory? Try to play Skyrim without the quest markers. It's impossible. Because developers were too lazy to actually make a quest system that gives enough info to the player so he can travel around the world by himself. Sometimes games can get pretty confusing without markers, I agree (Morrowind was a pain in the ass sometimes), but what's happening mostly in the industry right now is: developers are making shit so plain obvious a kid could figure it out and including markers for ~no fucking reason at all~. Example: The beggining scene in Far Cry 3 where you have to follow a dude. Did it really need that bright yellow pointer telling the player who to follow? I mean, you're not THERE anymore. You haven't been kidnapped by these terrorists, you're just playing a game where you're kidnapped and it's telling you "uhghgh folos dis man >>>>>>>>dis man<<<<<<" like you're fucking retarded and can't figure it out by yourself. If the game tells me "follow the dude in a white shirt" I don't need a fucking pointer on the dude throughout the entire scene because the game already told me exactly what I need to do and how to perform it. Remember in Half-Life 2 where you learned every mechanic by actually PLAYING the game? Remember how you learn to use the gravity gun by playing fetch with a robot? The game was so well put together it's not even funny. I hate using Half-Life 2 as an example because it's an overused one, but it's one of those games that teach the player how to play without him even knowing he's on a constant tutorial. Let's look deep into how it teaches the player how to pick up items. As soon as you get out of the train the game introduces you to the Overwatch. They're nazi guards that will beat you for shits and giggles. They're mean and imponent and you can't do any harm to them because you have no guns. The player's bound to get a beating at some point in the beggining, at which point he gets either pissed or scared of these bullies. Then suddenly a metrocop pops up drops a can off the trash can lid and mockingly tells you to pick it up. This will trigger the player into picking it up because a. he's pissed off at how the metrocops are smug cunts and is going to throw it right into that guard's face or b. he's scared of getting another beating. See how that works? You're already in the tutorial. There are no pointers, there are no ridiculous pop ups apart from dim reminders (that fade away) on how to perform a certain action. You're in the tutorial the whole time. Why won't we get immersed in games anymore? Why won't we feel like we're there? Because we're treated like fucking babies by the developers. I'm really mad at how games nowadays can't keep their fucking feet on the dirt and have to appeal to the "casual" audience. It's not about the casual audience. It's about common sense.

The sad thing is as far as the money is flowing the Industry reckons there's no need for change.

I agree totally, One of the reasons I loved the first Unreal so much was that you just get dropped into the world and the story is revealed to you from exploration and the environments, not from being force fed down your throat. The biggest example for anyone who's played that game, is the sunspire level. It's a giant mountain spire - and [B]as soon as you start the game[/B] you can see it in the skybox. Sure you might not notice it in the first level, but with every outdoor segment you go through you eventually notice "hey, that thing is getting closer" as you explore. It's simple, but it was obvious, and it set up the fact that you were gonna have to tackle that eventually, without the game ever needing to tell you "This giant mountain is what you need to go to". It was none of that, the goal was basically you were trying to survive, and you are doing that by playing through the game, not because you were being told what to do. I know I've said it before, but two of my favorite "Aliens"-like games are the first 2 Space Hulk games. They were the closest I've ever seen to capturing the tension of the movies, and it wasn't because of the lighting or the designs - they were all 40k stuff, but because you are faced with an actual intelligent threat that doesn't stop coming, and will actually use tactics to outsmart you, lure you out, try to kill you and your squad, etc, and on top of that you actually have to worry about managing your squad, and your squad chat amongst themselves, let you know when one of the aliens is chasing after you, stuff like that. But the game never gives you button prompts, or breaks immersion or character except for maybe the scanner map. It's almost akin to what it would be like to be Gorman managing the marines from the APC, except with the ability to take control of one. Hell even when you die you hear a scream and then the game makes it look like a monitor went out, probably lending to that being what it actually is supposed to be. It also just baffles me that those games from the 90s can have cunning and intelligent AI that will keep you on your toes and actually flank you, trick you, and then we get something like A:CM where the AI barely even works.

Games nowadays are just doing way too much hand-holding (Super Mario Galaxy 2), way too little innovation between new games (CoD), investing way too much in the graphics and voice acting department (Activision games nowadays in a nutshell), and even the at-heart remakes of previously awesome games are just lacking in some way or another (XCOM: Enemy Unknown and AVP 2010). Video Game developers, where did all your imagination, cleverness, and creativity go? so far Mods are actually getting better than the games themselves because people are actually creative and its not being done by a greedy arsehole.

Usually everyone rates these sorts of threads dumb for some reason, but you make a valid point.

[hd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FpigqfcvlM[/hd] relevant to the subject at hand.

When ever I can I turn the HUD off Most of the time it just gets in the way

are there any recent games with tutorials implemented like the ones in Half-Life 2?

i understand having a big hud and all in games like halo where it's part of the character's armor interface. but in my opinion in games where the hud is something abstract that only displays health/armor/weapon it should be kept as minimal and unintrusive as possible.

[QUOTE=MenteR;39602376]i understand having a big hud and all in games like halo where it's part of the character's armor interface. but in my opinion in games where the hud is something abstract that only displays health/armor/weapon it should be kept as minimal and unintrusive as possible.[/QUOTE] Like in Killzone 2 and 3

The whole inclusion of a shiny skin for usable objects pisses me off. I used to dislike getting a little hud-popup 'Press x to x' whenever I looked at a usable item, but after playing Skyrim and Farcry3 that doesn't bother me so much. But making a dead body or animal GLOW to show me that I can use it is ridiculous. The hud has always been the 'window' we look through to see the game world, and having text on the hud to guide me isn't an issue, but putting something IN the game world that's so inconsistent with the realities and rules of the game world is stupid.

I think this whole issue is an overreaction. Games are being dumbed down and developed to be more accessible, but it's because the majority of people were complaining that it's too hard. I may not have complained about hard games with no direction and you may not have complained, but I can guarantee there are people who weren't able to finish Half-Life 2 because they didn't know where to go or what to do. If there's an issue at all, it's likely to blame on the game developers for listening to the feedback of those people. It's an evolution of making things easier and gaining a new audience, it has nothing to do with immersion. On the subject of games getting easier, it looks like the trend is turning back towards the frustration of the 1990's with games like Dark Souls, Max Payne 3, and Hitman: Absolution having excellent hard difficulties that are actually challenging. Maybe not Hitman: Absolution, the disguise system in that is moderately broken. I'm wondering if we can't get immersed into games anymore because we're older. I don't really have the free time to be bothered to get immersed in an old game, let alone a new one.

i felt max payne was pretty immersive at times specially in the favelas. you know when you get buzzed and you're looking at some spot for like 2 minutes without even noticing? that's what happened when i played through that level. i was like jeez this feels so alive. the VERY FIRST TIME i played L4D i felt it was pretty immersive too. later on it became less immersive as we didn't fear tanks or witches anymore, and we knew every single little spot on the levels. so the game became something like a board game where you have your own strategy and everybody knows the rules (in this case burn down tanks and crown witches) instead of a thrilling zombie apocalypse. gta 4 was also very immersive because the "marker" thing uses a car GPS which makes complete sense.

Games are feeling less like something you can play with a lose case and more like an interactive movie. Some games are better about it, some are worse.

I enjoyed dead space's method of HUD and quest markers, how it was all integrated into your suit, they did that well.

[QUOTE=Spacewolf;39603131]I enjoyed dead space's method of HUD and quest markers, how it was all integrated into your suit, they did that well.[/QUOTE] Yeah. QTE's weren't obtrusive either. Like when shit grabs you and you have to shoot off limbs or what have you, it felt like you were still in control.

I'd wager modern triple-A developers/publishers feel empowering the player is risky because the player may do things that the developers can't account for. Too much interactivity leads to too many uncontrolled variables.

I was playing Metro 2033 today and it's a great example of an immersible experience. For example they took their time and instead of building a map and objectives screen that takes you out of the game they had the character pull out a physical map, and look at it, and even took it to the point where if it was dark you could use the lighter to shine light on it. [t]http://puu.sh/23aQl[/t] It also did the thing where if your gas mask filter is running out you can look at your watch to find out how much time you've got left - but it also made the character breath more violently as your filter got worse and worse. A little imagination and a little more effort, like that on Metro's part, can bring a game a long way into being immersible and it should be done more.

Excellent points, comrade. It seems Valve (and maybe Rockstar?) is the only company that knows how to truly "immerse" a player. (There's several other companies such as the guys who developed metro, but that was already listed above and I'm not gonna take the time to list the others)

i feel like this is why minecraft had so much appeal to a lot of people it basically just left you out to dry, and you had to fend for yourself while simultaneously finding lots of cool shit

It's a case of lowest common denominator. Developers feel that if they can reach five times the casual audience, even if cutting out a portion of the more 'hardcore' or 'older' gamers, that they'll make more money. It's when games become profit margins over actual games that there's an issue. You can draw a huge line inbetween Skyrim and Morrowind (or Daggerfall, if you must.) Skyrim is a straight up, AAA-Title game with huge quest markers, forced tutorials, and that the premise is that the player is stupid and needs to be nudged along with no consequences. Morrowind was an odd Western FPS-RPG.. thing.. with dice-rolls in combat. Yet, the story and characters felt unusual and campy because it was obvious the developers were having fun with it. The amount of adventuring you had to do to find some locales without fast travel or quest markets made you feel accomplished and not like you were being funneled towards the objective. And finally, you could royally fuck quests and the entire game up by doing obviously wrong things - [b]and instead of making it so that you can't kill important people, the game would just warn you that the main quest is fucked and to proceed at your own risk.[/b] All the hand-holding and 'forced' aspects of modern games is the reason they really struggle to hold my attention; and probably the reason I sunk unholy hours into older games. Also the same reason I go back to visit them now and then, just to make sure my glasses aren't getting to rosy.

I've posted my thoughts before on this subject or a similar one. To sum it up real fast... Game developers now a days seem obsessed with construct set pieces and scripted quicktime cut scenes and force you to take part in that event and hope to WOW you with shiny sparkly nonsense. What games should be about is being able to encounter something that few other players have; and being able to interact with the world and having it respond back to you (Aside from the interaction Kill Enemies: Enemies Die). For example, what's more exciting: A game like uncharted where you're navigating through a set piece that's on fire compared to something like Minecraft, where your structure can ignite up into flames while you're inside. What about a game that takes away your weapons and forces you to play a stealth sequence compared to actually running out of ammo and finding yourself playing more stealthily from necessity?

Studios make these decisions because it what they feel helps immerse a player in the world. In some games it's by using an immersive HUD, in others like your example, it's letting the player figure it out and in some its put into the game world itself. These decisions are decided, tested and argued over [I]constantly[/I] and it isn't a case of devs being lazy. Admittedly, I don't know what happened to Colonial Marines but a decision was made and thought about and it wasn't successful. Simply accusing a Studio of being lazy pretty much invalidates a lot of points you and others try to make, in my eyes.

Immersion and organic gameplay are game design; scripted cutscenes and quicktime events are not game design. Simple as. Ok it's not though. The player needs to feel in control of their actions for pretty much the whole way through; if the player gives up control it should probably be because they knowingly chose to, like they choose to get into their bed to sleep, or you approach someone and talk to them. Quicktime events for melee combat are also a bad idea; if you are going to fight someone with a sword or your fists, you should actually be in normal control of your character and not be restricted to pushing a button at a specific time. You wouldn't see Nier hammering the contextual attack button to beat up Shades or throw spears made of blood; no he actually moves around and directs his attacks how you choose. Even when that little runic clock appears over a downed enemy, you aren't forced into contextual "mash A to rip the Shadow Beast's throat out" stuff like God of War or Twilight Princess, you actually have to deal real unscripted damage to deal those last few blows, absorb the resultant blood, and finish off the boss with a powerful and awesome, albeit scripted, finishing attack, often involving the powerful blood magic he uses with Weiss' help. Even though that game does take control away sometimes via cutscenes, it still scores a positive by not doing scripted rigid quicktime events. If you're going to make a game, make it organic, and if control can be taken away from the player, it should be because they chose to and not because of a scripted event. That being said, how legit are things like stuns and disables in multiplayer games, wherein control is in theory taken away by an actual intelligent person rather than a stupid arbitrary scripted event? Should they be accepted or are they lousy? Personally I'm alright with stuns and disables; they can turn the tide of a conflict if used right, and your ire is directed to the guy behind the keyboard who threw his metal fist at you, rather than some idiot designer who thought trying to compromise between linear uncontrolled experiences and an interactive medium was in any way a good idea. So yeah; what I've now concluded on is that if you're doing to have things that take away control, they have to be organic, whether an enemy pounces on you without artificial instruction or if you choose to engage in an activity that doesn't require too much interaction, like talking to someone, deliberately triggering something to give exposition like an in-game book. That being said if we want to design enemies that disable us yet we can still "break free", we need a better method than mashing the indicated button or pressing it at the right moment; games like Dead Space are strong examples of these kind of "Pounce" QTEs. Still, someone needs to come up with a way to have disabling enemies that can be forced off, without making it feel artificial like a QTE. Maybe something like move the mouse/thumbstick towards then away from you to push the enemy off? Or does that seem too gimmicky? Also Minecraft does seem rather organic for a bunch of blocks; you never get control taken away unless either you die or you lie down in your bed or sit in a Minecart/on a pig without a Carrot-on-a-Stick, and even with the Minecart/Pig you can still use things whilst riding it, right?

[QUOTE=Inspector Jones;39604364] For example, what's more exciting: A game like uncharted where you're navigating through a set piece that's on fire compared to something like Minecraft, where your structure can ignite up into flames while you're inside. What about a game that takes away your weapons and forces you to play a stealth sequence compared to actually running out of ammo and finding yourself playing more stealthily from necessity?[/QUOTE] Stuff like this is exactly why I'm not impressed by all these dressed up cutscenes games have. You can have scripted sequences, but have the player do meaningful interaction with them An example of this is the bridge collapsing sequence in Crysis 2. I know a bunch of people who are like "OOH THIS IS SO COOL" at that part but I personally couldn't care less. Yeah it looks nice, that's great. It would have been 100x more impressive if it wasn't a collision-less animation, and there was no cutscene. Imagine if you were running across the bridge, dodging all the fallings beams and ducking and sliding under things. [B]That[/B] would have been something awesome and completing that would have an effect on the player. That is why one of my favorite levels in any game, ever, has to be the[URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fO1v7ML3D8"] falling ship level[/URL] from Dark Forces 2: It's similar in spectacle to those types of cutscenes you see in modern games, but YOU have to get through the ship, YOU have to avoid the boxes sliding around, and make it to the exit before it crashes into the ground. It integrates a part of what happened in the story into the gameplay in a meaningful way.

For myself at least, the biggest killer of immersion is [b]lens flare[/b]. I don't want to watch a Michael Bay film, I want to live it. Yes, i'm looking at you Battlefield 3.

I find it pretty funny that Combat Arms (the F2P shooter my broke friends play) has more MP maps than the last 3 Console/PC CoD games COMBINED. Excluding the Zombies maps, since they are gamemode-exclusive. BO1, BO2 and MW3 have 44 MP maps combined, CA has 45 by my cound. And in my opinion MANY of them are larger/more intricate/both. Step it up activision god DAMN.

I don't mind the button prompts. If I'm playing multiple games their control schemes usually differ and makes me confused. The prompts remind me which button does what without having to go into input settings every time. Though I can totally see how that can be annoying and an optional turn off feature would be welcome.

[QUOTE=PieClock;39603946]I was playing Metro 2033 today and it's a great example of an immersible experience. For example they took their time and instead of building a map and objectives screen that takes you out of the game they had the character pull out a physical map, and look at it, and even took it to the point where if it was dark you could use the lighter to shine light on it. [t]http://puu.sh/23aQl[/t] It also did the thing where if your gas mask filter is running out you can look at your watch to find out how much time you've got left - but it also made the character breath more violently as your filter got worse and worse. A little imagination and a little more effort, like that on Metro's part, can bring a game a long way into being immersible and it should be done more.[/QUOTE] Don't even get me started on fucking Metro. I love the shit out of its mechanics. The universal charger is one of those tiny things that make the difference. They engage the player in quite a lot of ways, it's why I love Ranger difficulty. Also I saw someone post about the collapsing bridge and how scripted it was, well Metro suffers from that a little aswell, at the end. But instead of a collapsing bridge, it's collapsing everything you're holding on to. I constantly felt unsafe during that quicktime event which still prompted you to mash your 'use' bottn (excusable use to me) because I have insane fear of heights, seriously I hated that part, massive grats on immersion though.

You raise a good point about HL2, I never really thought about it that way, that it's introducing you to mechanics without overly stating so. I guess you just take that sort of thing for granted after awhile, especially with FPS' and such that usually share common mechanics.