TGLT said:
Nutcase said:
Again: please name games that have *good* mechanics of these types, for I'd like to play them.
Doom had good secrets, you just had to pay attention, Wolf3D was just secrets existed before RE4. Off color walls, strange switches, etc. etc. Also, again, to cite Doom, if we're talking just strategy utilizing enemy weaknesses, then in-monster fighting.
As for utilizing monster weaknesses as tactics or damaging their ability to do things... sounds like most RPGs to me. At least, any RPG that has a list of abilities based around debuffing of some sort.
RPGs and tactical games have had that sort of thing from the beginning of time, but we're talking action games here.
Headshots are standard issue on every shooter. E.g. Jericho moves the "headshot" location to a different spot. I give it props for going for a little variety, but that does not mean it has any more tactical choice. You always want to shoot the "head" and keep shooting until the target goes down. Not so in RE4. It's not obvious whether in a given situation you should shoot the head, the weapon, legs, and what you should do after you hit: run in for melee combo, shoot more, back up. To top it off, the fastest way often comes with a cost. Shoot the head? You risk the tentacle burst. Shoot the leg of a ledge-dwelling ganado? The body drops into an unreachable location, and you have that much less ammo.
Again, I'm not saying it was a bad game, but that a lot of its popularity probably has something to do was it breathed some life back into a really, really crappy game in terms of gameplay. Sure, RE did claustrophobia right but it was more a tank simulator in a zombie apocalypse than playing a real person.
Funny, since I think RE4 takes a lot of crap for no other reason than the RE name. It's like "Alien" fans pissing on "Aliens", judging it solely on its merits as horror because that's what the first one was. Never mind that it's a good action movie.
Now if you're referring to just coolness factor, then there's a lot of games out there of all genre that are based around coolness factor. Well, and weak points. Glowing weak points. Shiny glowing weak points, usually, but still.
What coolness factor? All I'm talking about is game mechanics that are fun and *way* too rare. When I asked for examples of good secrets and reactive targets, you quoted a fifteen year old game and totally different genres.
I agree with you on that Doom was definitely trying to do secrets right, even in the face of severely limiting technology. Monster infighting was a great mechanic. Yet another thing we are not seeing much at all in modern games.