Extra Punctuation: Action Is Not Finisher Porn

[ZtH]

Reading this brought up the grab kills in Prince of Persia: Warrior Within for me. I remember them being cool the first time and done in slow motion, but as the game wore on I'm pretty sure they stopped showing them in slow motion. This was a pretty good balance as I never got tired of them seeing as I only saw them once in slow motion and after that they were just quick and brutal. The speed kills in Two Thrones made me happier though seeing as I enjoyed the platforming more than the fighting and they created stealth obstacles in addtion to the normal Prince of Persia routine.

 

[cymonsgames]

I'd argue that the X-Ray attacks in Mortal Kombat are valuable in that they provide the player with breathing room in an otherwise thumb-straining button-mashy combo fest.

I also like the fact that they power up based on the beating your getting. In other words they're an equalizer. Good for gameplay.

But I agree with Yatzee. They're boring. The same moves over and over again. I noticed when I played that none of the X-Ray moves included the arms bones. Was this because of Jax and the multi-armed characters making animating them procedurally difficult? That's a shame. Plus this means that the cyber characters were basically suits of armor around an otherwise completely human physiology. Robocop they ain't.

If they had managed to fix this problem, however, imagine what the X-Ray moves _could_ have been! Super powered any regular combos where the connected hits get the TSA treatment, and you could have a different X-Ray move every time. I think this would have been a better road to go.

 

[irishda]

I have to disagree with his assessment of God of War, mostly because you could simply opt not to do the finisher prompt on the usual enemies (except for that damn chimera). And the finisher moves for the bosses were all unique sequences that were pretty impossible to become repetitive.

 

[Inkidu]

I am the perfect model of a modern game developer.
I work and make clones of a game fans will fuss over
I copy the mechanics so carefully
Now I have created the industry's greatest I.P.!

Chorus.

 

[yanipheonu]

I dunno, I like finishers. Sometimes it's fun to see a long flashy move pulled off. Why do you think nearly every fighter has some sort of Ultra Move or Finisher now? People like it.

Of course it's a matter of intergrating it well, which he's stressing of course. Keeping it short, or having you do a little mini-game to make it work a la Dissidia are some ways to do it.

 

[Zhukov]

I reckon the most annoying example of this would be Assassin's Creed Brotherhood.

About 85% of kills end in an Ezio performing a somewhat elaborate finisher, complete with fancy camera angles (which can be mercifully disabled in the options). They look cool and there's enough of them that I never really got tired of seeing the same ones.

Problem is, other enemies can run up and smack you before you're done. Since you have no way to avoid the finishers, this results in a ridiculous series of interrupted stabbings.

 

[hermes]

Actually, I enjoy the X-Rays in MK more than I enjoyed the QTE in God of War or even Bayonetta. The reason for that, I guess, is repeatability... For MK, you have to fill a bar to be able to pull them off. That, combined with the amount of damage they did when they connected, means you can't just spam those moves over and over and over again. At most, you get to see one per round... X-Rays are the response to SF4's Ultras: Not a necessary part of the fighting "experience", but capable of tipping the balance. Also, they fit with the world of MK, are flashy and fun to pull off.

This comes from a more purist fighting game fan vs a game fan. I get that x-rays and fatalities doesn't involve as much skill as a 20 hits combo that does the same, or more, damage... but they are part of the MK experience.

In God of War, you can make those elaborate animations for nearly every enemy. That is all cool when there are few enemies and they have enough HP to be able to withstand a fury of Kratos' attacks for more than a minute, but when there are a lot, and you only need a couple well placed attacks to enter "QTE mode", the novelty disappears fast...

 

[Omega Pirate]

Once you get into it, Batman Arkham Asylums combat is fun. This is probably the only game which I actually enjoyed the combat, and replayed it just for the combat.

 

[SanguineSymphony]

I hated the combat in AA. It was too simplistic and took control away from the player. It was designed for casuals or just shitty gamers. But I also most of the time hate finishers and QTEs. Bayonetta's were done well (in combat) and I liked the ones in Madworld and The No More Heroes games. All of those felt very visceral and kept me in the moment however.

I absolutely hate cinematic attacks in fighting games as a rule. They break up the pace and once again take away control. They can be stomachable in games like Dissidia though.

 

[katsabas]

I don't know what Yahtzee decided to get all worked up about. I never found QTEs in GOW to be game-breaking. In fact, I liked mashing the 'fuck you' button to death to make a minotaur eat my blades. It is called letting off steam.

Same thing with MK. Shao Kahn just spammed me again. I punch his dick off three times. Inner peace through outer violence.

 

[internetzealot1]

Yes, but by the time you do a finisher in MK, the fight is already over. There's nothing left to do...except reinforce to your opponent that you just kicked their ass.

 

[DontBotherNone]

Cool features break things because coolness always wants to stand out above everything else; coolness never wants to just be a part of the whole. Games have to be built as a holistic unit, with each element contriving to create a singular, coherent experience. Cool elements and cool features are contrapositive to this goal. Unfortunately, game developers work on the guiding principle of "make it cool.". This leads to creation of cool features and cool elements in the game that vie for the complete attention of the gamer and, in turn, create a jarring, discontinuous experience as each cool feature carves out its own fiefdom of context within the game. The game loses cohesion, which leads to a loss of flow.

I've watched this same problem for years occur in the video games industry. But I've seen the problem not restricted to just the video games industry. I've seen the problem occur with software design in general, and I've seen the problem in other areas of technology, as well. However it was with video games that I first came to the idea that cool things break things. They just don't fit in with the rest of the work, because they are trying too hard to stand out, to be the only thing that gets all the attention.

Fantastic assessment.

As for the X-Ray moves, I knew they would get boring the first instant they were revealed. I disliked them immediately because they broke the aesthetic of the game, however. They just didn't look good.

If a game wants to be based around combat - like most games do - then they cannot create some mechanic that is overly long and robs the gamer of control, because it'll lose all impact after being executed ad nauseum.

Oh, and as much as I loved Arkham Asylum the first time around, few things in recent gaming have been as satisfying as going back to the game several months later and truly mastering it by completing all of the stealth/combat challenges. Clearing a room of 40 baddies with one combo and without taking a lick of damage, as mentioned, is exhilarating.

 

[SaintWaldo]

felch-coughing

You're a weapons grade looney and I love you second only to Susan Arendt. Don't ever open a video game bar here; I'll destroy your karaoke.

 

[Mangue Surfer]

Out of focus. The X-Ray moves can take to 27 to 33% of the enemy's life bar. If connected with other combos can go up to 50%. They not only must have "weight" but, more important, the game need give time to the offended rethink your strategy. You see, one guy had his life bar go to 50% to 20% in an instant, the other guy don't have more juice to perform other X-ray or even super moves (at least not immediately). The battle WILL change, so the human beings playing the game need time to reassess the fight. This IS the gameplay perspective.

Thus, the Yahtzee perspective isn't the gameplay perspective, it?s more like a voyeur perspective, a movie geek perspective. He want watch a nice show. It?s ok but the guys playing aren?t machines they are human beings, they need think and rethink in the heat of battle. It?s not that easy, they need time. And the Batman example it?s not good. It?s virtually impossible lose a fight in Arkham Asylum. It?s ok because you are the ?Goddamn Batman? but, you never need to rethink your strategy so, what's the point?

PS.: Sorry for the bad english.

 

[Namewithheld]

And I'm reminded of just how awesome it was to pull off a 20-30 hit combo in Arkham Asylum.

Yeah, that did carry more weight than spamming Kano's X-Ray with infinite super meter.

Only a 30?

Pfff, I usually hit 50s when I'm doing the combat rooms. Specially the extreme ones.

 

[Realitycrash]

Extra Punctuation: Action Is Not Finisher Porn

Yahtzee doesn't get why action games stop the action.

Read Full Article

You're still Bitching about the same bullshit aspect we long countered !

THE FINISHER IS EXACTLY LIKE THE ULTIMATE IN OTHER GAMES GET IT THROUGH YOUR THICK SKULL OR FUCKING FIND A NEW JOB YOU'RE TURNING STALE AND ARE JUST RANTING ABOUT SHIT THAT ISN'T AN ISSUE

What a shame to waste such a high postcounter on such a silly thing.

 

[Realitycrash]

It was designed for casuals or just shitty gamers.

So, tell me, how would the game have been improved if the combat was more "skilled"?

Want it harder? Turn up the difficulty-setting.

 

[RTR]

I know Yahtzee wouldn't care about this following argument, but he's talking about the game from a single player perspective, IMHO.
First of all, I think it's unfair to compare a solo action game like God of War to this game. Yes, the asthetics are very similar, but they both have a different focus in terms of a more ideal way of playing. Generally, fighting games are better when you can play with someone else other than the AI in the game. Yes, I know Mortal Kombat has a single player component, but it functions with the same mechanics used elsewhere in the game. I'm not saying it shouldn't be in the game as if I was indifferent about it, I just don't see it as an issue.
The purpose of Mortal Kombat is, for the most part, more social; the satisfaction of getting together with a friend and seeing who can come out on top. While the finishing moves can be repetitive, they are satisfying because of the pressure that ensues over the feeling of overcoming your opponent.
Also, nobody's looking at Mortal Kombat, not even from the very beginning, as something that should have dramatic weight. They never tried for it, but people still played it anyway. And it was awesome.

 

[CrawlingPastaHellion]

"On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness" had some swift and rather brutal finishers. They were really hard to execute as well, which added that sense of satisfaction every time one would manage to pull them off.

Overall a neat game with a nice sense of humor, even if you're not a fan of "Penny Arcade" (I sure am not). The only problem with it is that, like most episodic games, they didn't finish it: only two episodes were released out of logical four.

 

[Caliostro]

Why do so many game developers have this curious blind spot to the fact that anything that's part of the core gameplay is going to be seen over and over and over again?

Or even more offensive: Death animations that NEVER FUCKING END.

I think this is one of those "people that made the game forgot to play it" issues. There really is no other explanation for some of them. It seems that whomever is making these animations gets so impressed by the fruit of their labor that they completely forget people will be seeing these every other second. And they never get a chance (or have the will) to play the game themselves, so they haven't the slightest clue how often people will be seeing them.

I loved the fighting in God of War... Except for the fact that if I wanted to level up my shit and get all the powerups, I needed to apply these cockblockers with every other kill. This completely ruined the flow of combat. And yes, Arkham Asylum was absolutely perfect as an example of good game flow.

I have a completely different set of grievances against MK though, mostly that it comes across as a somewhat cynical "My First Street Fighter" covered in gore and tits.

Cheers.