Comments on: Psychonauts Impressions

By: Nat

Nat — Sat, 10 Sep 2005 00:02:41 +0000

I don’t get this fascination with ‘forcing’ the player to do things.

It’s a game. Most people play them to have fun. If your way of having fun is to be forced to do things you don’t want to, go see a dominatrix. It’s what you really wanted anyway.

By: peterb

peterb — Fri, 09 Sep 2005 23:34:48 +0000

> I can beat any mission in Ghost Recon with just a sniper, simply
> because I can save anywhere.

So DON’T DO THAT, THEN.

By: psu

psu — Fri, 09 Sep 2005 23:18:33 +0000

Funny you should mention Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six. I played a few of the Rainbow Six missions and found them soul-suckingly tedious because, you guessed it, I could not save anywhere.

Meanwhile, I am finding the current expansion pack to Ghost Recon very fun.

I guess there are two types of people. Those who like save-anywhere and those who are wrong.

By: Adam

Adam — Fri, 09 Sep 2005 23:09:47 +0000

Haven’t played the game, but Tim S. made some great contributions to the industry, so I’m guessing it can’t be THAT bad. lol, you and your save feature gripes…allowing a person to save anywhere can cause lots of problems, not to mention theoretically eliminate all challenge from the game. Checkpoints are a way of forcing the player to at least play through a sequence of SOME length without dying…saving wherever you want was what took the amazing, rewarding challenge level of Rainbow Six and annihilated it in Ghost Recon…I can beat any mission in Ghost Recon with just a sniper, simply because I can save anywhere.

By: Brian P

Brian P — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 16:46:15 +0000

I agree with you in that it wasn’t a lot of fun. The visuals were great and the story was too, but I got through the first 3 or 4 levels I guess and just got bored with it. I’m not really big into platform games anyway though.

brian
http://myvogonpoetry.com

By: Mike Collins

Mike Collins — Mon, 05 Sep 2005 03:41:38 +0000

I didn’t have that problem with Psychonauts, but I’ve had it enough with games this year to appreciate the problem. (OT: I’m currently running a controller upgrade every time I buy a GTA game because Rockstar seems to feel the need to have every possible DOF on the Dual Shock mapped to some function – I ended up with mirrored controls and no way to fix it short of buying new hardware)

That actually brings up an interesting thought, though – U8 had a severe jumping problem in its first release, which they fixed in a patch by increasing the generosity of landing. Do you think it might make sense to have a parameterized jumping difficulty for platformers? If you don’t want to spend the rest of your life focusing on the perfect jump than narrower ledges, wider ropes and bigger sticky spots?

By: psu

psu — Sun, 04 Sep 2005 01:06:02 +0000

I am totally willing to chalk this up to my lack of coordination colliding with how the controls were tuned in an optimally bad way. I just found it really hard to hit things like ropes and ledges, and I see no reason to spend my life frustrated.

I certainly appreciate the visual design of the game, but visuals are not everything.

By: Mike Collins

Mike Collins — Sun, 04 Sep 2005 01:02:25 +0000

That’s interesting; I have the xbox version and I haven’t had remotely the kind of control problems you’re describing – Raz had velcro fingers and a pretty tight balance.

The one loss I think is you’re missing out on some visually stunning level design after the intro. Black Velvetopia and the Milkman Conspiracy are really impressive.

By: psu

psu — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 23:25:52 +0000

I am playing the xbox version.

I should update my status as a heathen who is letting control issues get in the way of a good game design.

By: Tom Edwards

Tom Edwards — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 20:34:14 +0000

“Anyway, I guess I’ve tagged myself as a heathen who just doesn’t recognize good game design”

I hate to be so blunt, but…yup. The control problems do sound quite nasty though. What platform are you on? I’ve got it for PC and they are fine.