Bad mechanics...?

[shadow_Fox81]

Playing penumbra acquired in the recent Steam halloween sale something struck me about the melee(someting which i'm sure poeple have noticed), it was horrible, ineffective and unintuitive.

But it led me to thinking on something that appears in a great deal of my favorite games; horrible game mechanics. The melee in penumbra made me feel all the more weak and helpless and resort heavily on running and hiding because the combat made the player character poor at defending them selves.

Similarly the poor maps and navigation systems in Fallout3 made one feel all the more lost and insignificant and in condemned shooting was awkward and restricting, emphasising melee and bringing a more visceral and frantic survivalist experience.

so i wonder, are things like this done on purpose?

and if so does anyone think it was a good idea and a concept dev's should play with more often?

 

[Outright Villainy]

Well a big go to example is the turning/shooting system in Resident Evil, whether the frustration is balanced by the restriction adding to the tension.

Honestly though, I prefer a game avoid any poor mechanics if they want to emphasise something else. You mention Penumbra, and Amnesia is where they showed a big improvement; combat is cut completely, so now you have to hide, which also leads you to feeling even more powerless.

In condemned (or mirror's edge for that matter), they'd have just been better off cutting guns entirely. Games don't need to take a kitchen sink approach, features can be cut if they want to focus on certain areas, and poor mechanics are never really a justification, just focus on what's important in the game.

 

[shadow_Fox81]

You mention Penumbra, and Amnesia is where they showed a big improvement; combat is cut completely, so now you have to hide, which also leads you to feeling even more powerless.

but I don't think Amnesia was a big improvement just different, if games big selling card is choice why take that away. if someone wants to try awkwardly swing that pickaxe at every enemy that comes their way why take that away. In amnesia i had to hide, but in penumbra i could think my way around things i actually threw random objects at enemies if i had to to survive. often i almost died trying to defend myself and was forced to run and hide because i had made a poor choice bad mechanics had fascilitated, whic significantly increased the emotional impact the game had on me.

 

[Waffle_Man]

Right now, gaming is a lot like a grocery store that sells pretty much nothing but cookies. Sure, cookies are a nice treat, but anyone planning on eating nothing but cookies for dinner is going hate themselves afterwards. While the gaming grocery store wants to be take seriously, like the film and book grocery stores, people have to look elsewhere for their bread and butter. Why? Because the gaming grocery store refuses to sell anything that isn't in bulk. While this doesn't stop people from buying cookies (let's face it, the gaming grocery store has some pretty damn good cookies), people don't want to commit to a package of twenty four loaves of bread.

While I would love more of what I like to refer to as "splendid messes" in video games, the problem is that gaming is at a point where the barrier to entry for games is often too high for gamer's to look over "flaws", even when these "flaws" specifically contrast and point to some of the more profound or exemplary elements of the game.

 

[Outright Villainy]

but I don't think Amnesia was a big improvement just different, if games big selling card is choice why take that away.

The games selling point wasn't choice though, it was trying to make you feel helpless, which was improved by removing combat. Adding features can often dilute the focus of a game, the game should pick carefully what tools it'll give you and implement them well, not half ass everything. Of course, removing features in something like Skyrim would be silly, since that game is all about choice, but it'd be like say in mario, if they gave you the choice to not use the polished platforming mechanics, and implemented a fiddly rubbish jetpack or something.

Oh wait...