Games grow ever more complex and complete, yet, sometimes the end-users run into smaller or larger choices that somehow do spoil the gaming experience.
Of course, I'm not talking about bugs, those are just that, things to be fixed, but rather about how some things are implemented or some choices that maybe aren't that big a deal for a developer but that can be a bit or very annoying to some users.
So, based on personal experience and "issues" I've had I've compiled this little list for developers, little forethought that can improve users experience (sometimes even a lot!).
- Subtitles everywhere (in game, in cut-scenes etc.)
while nowadays the quality of dubbing in games is certainly superior to what it used to be some years ago the truth is the original voicing is (almost) always superior.
Just think about Uncharted 2, the voice was recorded together with the action, something that even a great dubbing cannot replicate.
Not to mention original actors are usually chosen with great care while for dubbing sometimes choices are more limited (due both to time and money restrictions).
Also, for some languages (in places where game audience is small as well as the money that can be invested) dubbing isn't available so people have to do with the original voicing and subtitles.
Also do not forget there are deaf/half deaf people, for them the subtitles is the only way they can access a game dialogue.
Yet, there are games where subtitles aren't available everywhere.
An appalling example is Ratchet & Clank that only have subtitles for cut-scenes and not for the in-game dialogue. While the in-game dialogue isn't that relevant it still is part of the game, so why no sub-titles?
Marvel: the Ultimate Alliance 2 is another example with the subtitles only available for single player but no multiplayer, however give the amazing sheer amount of bugs in the game that was probably just one of many.
- Well paced subtitles
this isn't actually something I have run into very often, however if you've got Splinter Cell: Conviction you know what I'm talking about: a few sentences that vanish after like a couple of seconds making it impossible to really read it.
I find it pretty amazing that no one noticed this issue for such a big title.
- Separate audio settings for voices/FXs etc.
It's become a habit to separate the audio settings for Music and effects in game, however not every game includes different settings for actual effects and voices making it a real problem.
When I play Red Dead Redemption I really feel like I'm going to become deaf: the shooting is very loud while voices are very low which means you raise the volume to hear the dialogues and then your eardrums are hurt by any sudden shooting: bad feel and bad experience.
This is particularly nasty when using headphones and can easily cause headache if you don't pause the game every ten second to raise and lower the volume (quite annoying!).
This is something that would also be very useful in Ratchet & Clank where the weapons sound really is noisy and it's practically impossible to hear voices while you shoot.
On the other hand there are games that already do it: Demon's Soul for example or Transformers: War for Cibertron: 2 thumbs up for them!
- Easy/fast way to mute players or send messages in-game
Multiplayer is becoming hotter and hotter with many games including such an experience even when they are mostly conceived for single players (see: Uncharted, Splinter Cell: Conviction etc.).
Things very useful to have are:
- easy/fast way to mute players. While I understand the value of talking in-game I really find it annoying to listed to kids bubbling their stuff or people putting their music at high volume.
I really can't understand what drives these people annoy others but the point is there are annoying people so please, let us mute them fast and easy (still have to find how to do it in Transformers: War for Cybertron)
- ability to send messages in-game.
Playing Red Dead Redemption lately it was really a pain when I had send someone a message and had to do so through PSN messaging system. It wasn0t annoying because I had to use the PSN messaging system but because I had to go look for the person among my recently met players and then send him/her the message, there was no way to just click a button in-game and have the PSN message window appear automatically (unless I'm dumb and blind).
Yes, there are headphones etc. but not everyone speaks the same language, you know, especially in Europe ;)!
- Non-locked saves
Please, p l e a s e, PLEASE!!! Or pretty please with sugar on top, if you prefer: make the saves copy-able to an external device.
Really, consoles aren't everlasting and they are subject to failures!!!
If you do play games yourself you probably do know how frustrating it is to just lose all your game progress, especially when you're about to finish a game.
This is also particularly true when one is after trophies and maybe was just missing a few that, however, will require a complete walk-through to get again (and yes, while Killzone 2 is a pretty amazing game playing it for the third time from scratch gets boring).
Many games nowadays have a very high re-playability value so that's not very "smart" to make saves unloackable because once one loses everything the re-play value is lost.
A fitting example is Heavy Rain. I'm 70% done with still some different paths to experience, I'm not into it right now though and if I lose my save (PS3 dies etc.) I'll just have to replay everything from scratch: meh.
On the other hand there are very loooong games, such as Demon's Soul, for example: if you lose your character progress, that's really excruciating!
I can understand there are sound reasons for locking saves but I also imagine XBOX360 and PS£ programmers are smart enough to find a way-out and make "hackers" or smart-asses harmless and players happy.
Really, just think about it: How many smart-asses are you "handcuffing" and how many regular players are you upsetting? I'm pretty sure the latter are many, many more and I'd say it's the latter that should really be your primary concern, right?
- Differently named saves
For those kind and smart programmers/developers that DO actually allow us to put our saves in a safe place (yeah, I've learned by past experiences and I have a tiny PS3 USB key in one of my PS3 USB ports all the time) I do have one more request: could you kindly ^_^ name saves in slightly different ways?
When I go and save my Red Dead Redemption progress I can basically only save 1 save rather than multiple, the same was Biochock 2, but it would actually be much more useful if we could save different progress, or maybe the saves folder as a whole!
- Avoid "tricky" trophies
Ok, this only happened once but it was painful, I played InFamous hard from the very beginning, but the beginning wasn't actually early enough.
Well, those of you that run into this know what I'm talking about. Basically to get the trophy for having played InFamous hard you had to switch immediately after the game starts to hard mode.
The point is you were immediately sucked into the game so it really wasn't that straightforward to go and check those settings.
If you want to do something like that (not just the same thing, you know, simply something that could be compared in flavour), please, just prompt a message or window asking if one wants to switch to hard mode so that one doesn't miss a game-long trophy for a couple of minutes of non-hard playing at the beginning!
- Show "hidden" trophies after the 1st walk-through
Many people like to platinum or max the achievements of a game, it's a way to show they truly like the game and did 100% of what could be done.
While I agree some trophies (story-related) should remain hidden to avoid "spoiling" players I don't get why others should.
Truth is people interested will just check the lists posted online since it's quite impossible to guess a hidden trophy with all things that can be done in most games so why don't developers just reveal all trophies once the first walk-though is over?
That would be quite convenient!
Well, that's certainly not all that could be asked but already quite a few things, hopefully someone will take them into consideration, I think it's good feedback from players!
p.s.: note that my examples usually mention fairly recent games but obviously they aren't based on these games only, it's just that these are the ones I remember exactly about!
Happy Gaming!
Ivy
Of course, I'm not talking about bugs, those are just that, things to be fixed, but rather about how some things are implemented or some choices that maybe aren't that big a deal for a developer but that can be a bit or very annoying to some users.
So, based on personal experience and "issues" I've had I've compiled this little list for developers, little forethought that can improve users experience (sometimes even a lot!).
- Subtitles everywhere (in game, in cut-scenes etc.)
while nowadays the quality of dubbing in games is certainly superior to what it used to be some years ago the truth is the original voicing is (almost) always superior.
Just think about Uncharted 2, the voice was recorded together with the action, something that even a great dubbing cannot replicate.
Not to mention original actors are usually chosen with great care while for dubbing sometimes choices are more limited (due both to time and money restrictions).
Also, for some languages (in places where game audience is small as well as the money that can be invested) dubbing isn't available so people have to do with the original voicing and subtitles.
Also do not forget there are deaf/half deaf people, for them the subtitles is the only way they can access a game dialogue.
Yet, there are games where subtitles aren't available everywhere.
An appalling example is Ratchet & Clank that only have subtitles for cut-scenes and not for the in-game dialogue. While the in-game dialogue isn't that relevant it still is part of the game, so why no sub-titles?
Marvel: the Ultimate Alliance 2 is another example with the subtitles only available for single player but no multiplayer, however give the amazing sheer amount of bugs in the game that was probably just one of many.
- Well paced subtitles
this isn't actually something I have run into very often, however if you've got Splinter Cell: Conviction you know what I'm talking about: a few sentences that vanish after like a couple of seconds making it impossible to really read it.
I find it pretty amazing that no one noticed this issue for such a big title.
- Separate audio settings for voices/FXs etc.
It's become a habit to separate the audio settings for Music and effects in game, however not every game includes different settings for actual effects and voices making it a real problem.
When I play Red Dead Redemption I really feel like I'm going to become deaf: the shooting is very loud while voices are very low which means you raise the volume to hear the dialogues and then your eardrums are hurt by any sudden shooting: bad feel and bad experience.
This is particularly nasty when using headphones and can easily cause headache if you don't pause the game every ten second to raise and lower the volume (quite annoying!).
This is something that would also be very useful in Ratchet & Clank where the weapons sound really is noisy and it's practically impossible to hear voices while you shoot.
On the other hand there are games that already do it: Demon's Soul for example or Transformers: War for Cibertron: 2 thumbs up for them!
- Easy/fast way to mute players or send messages in-game
Multiplayer is becoming hotter and hotter with many games including such an experience even when they are mostly conceived for single players (see: Uncharted, Splinter Cell: Conviction etc.).
Things very useful to have are:
- easy/fast way to mute players. While I understand the value of talking in-game I really find it annoying to listed to kids bubbling their stuff or people putting their music at high volume.
I really can't understand what drives these people annoy others but the point is there are annoying people so please, let us mute them fast and easy (still have to find how to do it in Transformers: War for Cybertron)
- ability to send messages in-game.
Playing Red Dead Redemption lately it was really a pain when I had send someone a message and had to do so through PSN messaging system. It wasn0t annoying because I had to use the PSN messaging system but because I had to go look for the person among my recently met players and then send him/her the message, there was no way to just click a button in-game and have the PSN message window appear automatically (unless I'm dumb and blind).
Yes, there are headphones etc. but not everyone speaks the same language, you know, especially in Europe ;)!
- Non-locked saves
Please, p l e a s e, PLEASE!!! Or pretty please with sugar on top, if you prefer: make the saves copy-able to an external device.
Really, consoles aren't everlasting and they are subject to failures!!!
If you do play games yourself you probably do know how frustrating it is to just lose all your game progress, especially when you're about to finish a game.
This is also particularly true when one is after trophies and maybe was just missing a few that, however, will require a complete walk-through to get again (and yes, while Killzone 2 is a pretty amazing game playing it for the third time from scratch gets boring).
Many games nowadays have a very high re-playability value so that's not very "smart" to make saves unloackable because once one loses everything the re-play value is lost.
A fitting example is Heavy Rain. I'm 70% done with still some different paths to experience, I'm not into it right now though and if I lose my save (PS3 dies etc.) I'll just have to replay everything from scratch: meh.
On the other hand there are very loooong games, such as Demon's Soul, for example: if you lose your character progress, that's really excruciating!
I can understand there are sound reasons for locking saves but I also imagine XBOX360 and PS£ programmers are smart enough to find a way-out and make "hackers" or smart-asses harmless and players happy.
Really, just think about it: How many smart-asses are you "handcuffing" and how many regular players are you upsetting? I'm pretty sure the latter are many, many more and I'd say it's the latter that should really be your primary concern, right?
- Differently named saves
For those kind and smart programmers/developers that DO actually allow us to put our saves in a safe place (yeah, I've learned by past experiences and I have a tiny PS3 USB key in one of my PS3 USB ports all the time) I do have one more request: could you kindly ^_^ name saves in slightly different ways?
When I go and save my Red Dead Redemption progress I can basically only save 1 save rather than multiple, the same was Biochock 2, but it would actually be much more useful if we could save different progress, or maybe the saves folder as a whole!
- Avoid "tricky" trophies
Ok, this only happened once but it was painful, I played InFamous hard from the very beginning, but the beginning wasn't actually early enough.
Well, those of you that run into this know what I'm talking about. Basically to get the trophy for having played InFamous hard you had to switch immediately after the game starts to hard mode.
The point is you were immediately sucked into the game so it really wasn't that straightforward to go and check those settings.
If you want to do something like that (not just the same thing, you know, simply something that could be compared in flavour), please, just prompt a message or window asking if one wants to switch to hard mode so that one doesn't miss a game-long trophy for a couple of minutes of non-hard playing at the beginning!
- Show "hidden" trophies after the 1st walk-through
Many people like to platinum or max the achievements of a game, it's a way to show they truly like the game and did 100% of what could be done.
While I agree some trophies (story-related) should remain hidden to avoid "spoiling" players I don't get why others should.
Truth is people interested will just check the lists posted online since it's quite impossible to guess a hidden trophy with all things that can be done in most games so why don't developers just reveal all trophies once the first walk-though is over?
That would be quite convenient!
Well, that's certainly not all that could be asked but already quite a few things, hopefully someone will take them into consideration, I think it's good feedback from players!
p.s.: note that my examples usually mention fairly recent games but obviously they aren't based on these games only, it's just that these are the ones I remember exactly about!
Happy Gaming!
Ivy
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