Last month I played a mediocre action game and came to an infuriating boss fight that forced me to fall back on a walkthrough, a tactic that always leaves me feeling a little dirty. The first link from Google read, "OK, now get ready for the crappiest boss battle you've ever played." Five minutes later, I uninstalled the game. It had been exposed as a fraud, relying on an unreasonably punishing enemy that required several levels' warning and preparation.
There is no longer any hiding the sins of game design. If a game uses cheap tricks, takes shortcuts to artificially challenge the player or contains extraneous or redundant elements, a few people will catch on - and they'll be more than happy to tell plenty of other gamers who would likely never have noticed anything was wrong.
That's not necessarily a good thing. I sometimes worry that we're all turning into amateur game designers and forgetting to be good audience members. I never heard the phrase "game balance issues" in my first decade as a gamer, but now it comes up constantly. I recently read a great piece on Steve Gaynor's blog about what a good shooter combat arena looks like, which contributed enormously to my understanding of why I've loved certain shooters and been left cold by others. His understanding of how we play and approach encounters in a shooter is superb, but once you've read his explanation you can't help but see the landscape of every shooter you play through the new, more critical lens Gaynor provides in his piece.
It doesn't necessarily lessen my enjoyment of games like F.E.A.R. or Half-Life, but it gives me an unshakable sense of intentionality. Because I have access to so many people more thoughtful and analytical than myself, the people who made my games have started to become a part of my experience. When I'm sprinting across some machine gun-swept plaza in a Call of Duty game, racing for an abandoned car or a heavy planter to hide behind, I now sense the designers' hand behind my next piece of cover. Suddenly, the maelstrom of war begins to resemble a carefully laid-out playground, as meticulously planned as a paintball court - and about as threatening.
On balance, however, I happily welcome the game-makers and skill-players into my experience if it means I'm getting a better product. A carefully structured game may seem a little too perfect, too devoid of reassuring chaos, but it will likely be more fun to play. It will also probably continue to get better as Zach and the rest of the gamer Overmind commence their exploiting, flaming, whining and explaining.
Rob Zacny is a freelance writer. When not focused on gaming, he pursues his interests in Classics, the World Wars, cooking and film. He can be reached at zacnyr[at]gmail[dot]com.
