1] A User-Unique Experience: In the next-generation, each gamer should enjoy their own experience. Obviously, there is a need for a broad level of linearity to tell a good narrative, and no one will deny that a quality scripted action sequence is great fun (think Half-Life 2), but there are other ways to achieve this result without discarding these elements. Open-environments and branching storylines are a start, but how about reactive A.I and unmitigated world physics. When two gamers talk about a game, their different personalities and play-styles should result in distinctive experiences: this does not occur when we walk down the same corridor and shoot the same guys with the same weapon and get the same reaction.
2] A Believable World: Remember Geo-mod, the ‘poke a hole in a wall and discover a power-up’ technology that ensured Red Faction’s FPS infamy? A fun gimmick to be sure, but really that is what should happen when you fire a rocket launcher into a frail wall. Why are we not demanding these real-world reactions now in the next-gen? If it would react to an explosion in the context of the environment, be it fictional or real, then it should in a game too. No next-gen crate should withstand a grenade. No street sign should stop a tank. No gameplay strategy should be limited by the inability of the environment to act, well, like an environment (like causing a wall to collapse on a hidden foe). It’s kind of insulting that we are forced to believe an exploding rocket would merely leave a black stain on a crusty old couch.
3] Be Rid of Handicapped Characters: Unless a character is bound to a wheelchair and/or has no arms, there is no excuse for them not to be able to jump, climb or swim. It would be better if a developer turned an ocean into lava or built ultra high fences - whatever is believable within the game world - just as long as we are not expected to believe an elite soldier can’t get over a knee-high wall.
4] Goodbye Mr. Crate: With all the power being juggled around by these next-generation machines, relying on bland level fillers like crates is just lazy design. Unless we are in a warehouse, or an actual Crate Factory, there probably shouldn’t be a crate. Likewise for random explosive barrels, locked doors, medi-packs and ammo just lying on the ground, etc. No matter how fanciful the setting may be - a far away planet, or some fantasy land accessed via a cupboard – a next-gen game would not ask us to turn a blind eye to generic environment devices to remain immersed within the world.
5] Integrated Online: Why must we segregate online from offline? Games like Crackdown and Test Dive Unlimited have shown that we never need to head back to a menu, load out of the single player experience and load into the multiplayer experience to know that we are part of a wider community. Why not have every track time, level score, kill count, accuracy figure… whatever, stat tracked and compared to the world on the fly. In addition, basic elements of an MMO in every game would be nice. A user should be able to share the single player experience with other users in real-time. Imagine getting stuck in Oblivion, but having an open chat line where you can simply ask of the world and anyone currently in it, ‘does anyone know how to ride a horse�
6] Ace Presentation: A console’s output should always be maximised – if that is 1080p resolution and 7.1 surround sound, then that is what a next-gen game should provide. Any less is selling the console and the consumer short. In addition, we should no longer be accepting text-based story progression, poorly written and voiced dialogue, storyboard narratives, ‘bloke in a garage with a synthesiser’ soundtracks or recycled SFX. We are buying the top tier of entertainment technology and a true next-gen game would be a shining example of its console’s capabilities.
7] User Added Content: Could the days of the ‘user map’ be over as publishers angle more and more towards the revenue of downloadable content? Let’s hope not! One of the great things that hard-drives and dashboards like the Marketplace were supposed to bring to console gaming was something PC lovers have enjoyed for over a decade – user added content. It can come in many forms (maps, cars, tracks, weapons, mods, etc.), and differ greatly between genres. But even at a basic level a next-gen game should leave the door open for user involvement. What about smaller messageboard additions like game tips, video footage, gameplay stories, cheats… a game’s community shouldn’t have to occur outside the game experience?
8] Superior A.I: Artificial Intelligence should be the most important thing in a game. Not how many cars or weapons, not how many levels, not the number of mini-games – the A.I. A next-gen A.I needs to be unpredictable, to not follow a friend around a corner and into enemy fire, to distinguish what weapon you are using and change its strategy accordingly, to watch and learn about your play style and then react in its best interests. In short, to outthink you. The A.I we desire will challenge us at every post.
9] It Remembers the Little Things: Even the little things make a difference and segregate a great game from a masterpiece. Things should never just disappear, in particular bodies. World boundaries should be believable too: not invisible walls, empty rooms with single entry points, impenetrable hedges, slowly moving knee deep streams… And what of weather - worlds have weather, that’s a fact, so it should exist in a game and have an affect on the action. Motion-based controls should make sense or not exist at all. And as for next-gen cut-scenes? They should all be able to be skipped, but how about paused or even rewound? Yep, the little things…
10] Refreshing Gameplay: Finally, and most important of all, we have the topic of gameplay. The pivotal titles of the past may seem to have birthed whole new gaming concepts, but in truth they didn’t really reinvent the wheel, they simply took a new perspective on the great gameplay of the past, then left their own marks of originality on top of that. We need new perspectives now, new ways of exploring gamer interaction with the experience and finding progressive methods of player immersion. It’s all about escapism after all.
Source: gameplayer > Home
continue the list readers....:hap2:
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