Use banana on ocelot (when less is less)

Use banana on ocelot (when less is less)
21st Jan 2010 - 11:51	by jansic
Some time last week I started playing Batman: Arkham Asylum, which I got free with my graphics card. It didn't take long to complete, roughly a week of intermittent play. Arkham Asylum is a story driven game, with a decidedly linear plot-line, some puzzle interaction and some combat interaction. There are many games that fall into this genre and good balance comes from pacing the delivery of the story with the gameplay mechanic. Batman mostly does everything right, it's a good story backed up by a playable game but here's the important part: it's not a great game. Batman is presented as a large world portraying a comic book story, where you use a selection of gadgets (delivered in a predetermined order) to turn the pages. At the start it's fun but as you reach the end of the game it all becomes laborious and redundant. When reach the final battle you're just going through the motions; and when you're finished you really are glad it's over. Batman: Arkham Asylum is never greater than the sum of its parts, it merely works very well. Contrast this with something much older, like Outcast. With its large world, storyline, puzzles and combat, it's different theme but it's in the same genre. The difference here is that Outcast's story unfolds fluidly and you can also find your own enjoyment within the world beyond that of the game. I never sat and watched the sea in Batman but I've sat on the docks in Okasankar, staring across the waters, listening to the lapping of waves. I couldn't be bothered finding all the Riddler's trophies but I've spent hours catching Fae fruit. There are many ways to extract enjoyment from a game, some games purposefully prevent it, others don't. Outcast is a game which is more than the sum of its parts and that makes it a great game. This ability for a game to have more than was designed in, is the difference between League of Legends and DotA. One is a custom streamlined game based on a purpose built engine, the other is a multiplayer hack built upon an old but feature rich RTS. After having played some practice matches with friends I've come to the conclusion that it's this distillation of the game that ruins the League of Legends gameplay. It's a copy that fails to capture its essence of the original. In a masochistic way I'd actually like to try out Heroes of Newerth. Though I expect that would merely mean I'd own 3 mediocre copies of a game I already have for free. muses

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