Playing It Properly

[Moonlight Butterfly]

This became a real problem for me in Rayman Origins. I cannot move on to the next level in that game until I 100% the level I'm on.

It's gonna take a while...

As for other people, I used to backseat drive constantly for my ex because he was strait up shit. I never took the controller off him, well okay maybe for ninja gaiden but that was for his own sanity. It was worth it in ffx2 when I 100% the game while he was at work and we got the real ending. He actually nearly smashed the controller when

Spoiler

Tidus didn't come back pre credits. His face at the end of the credits was awesome tho especially since he'd thrown a hissy fit

But now you've put a little slot for that icon, so now I have to get it.

Oh god, so true. That greyed out image taunts me, it's horrible.

snip

Speak for yourself, I have to do all the things.

 

[sethisjimmy]

Games are generally structured with goals. I get that you can ignore all goals and walk into a wall for the duration of your playtime, and believe me, I do that kind of shit for fun too, but at the same time, it's hard to watch someone ignore the way the game was clearly designed to be played by the developers, especially since it's that players first time playing.

I don't even think the body thing was that big of an issue. She wasn't CHOOSING to ignore the body, she had made an honest mistake (I would think).

 

[Pink Apocalypse]

[quote="Speak for yourself, I have to do all the things. [/quote]

But do you have to have someone berate you to do all the things?

The point, you completely missed it.

 

[Falseprophet]

Saying "you're playing the game wrong" is like saying a kid is playing with his Jenga blocks wrong if he uses them to build a fort for his army men. It's not life or death if you play a game unlike its creators intended.

 

[sammysoso]

I HATE when people tell me "You're playing it wrong." One of my biggest pet peeves.

That's something game developers need to get better at with games that have choices. Making choices different rather than good/bad. So there's no wrong way to play games, just different.

 

[Rad Party God]

It's not trhophies, achievements and such, it's been there in videogames since the 80's (or as far as I can remember).

Donkey Kong Country teached me to not screw things up, fearing to see yet another Game Over screen. Silent Hill teached me to not screwing things over, fearing to see yet another crappy ending. Super Metroid teached me to search every nook and cranny to find cool stuff, fearing to later screw up for not finding the proper stuff to keep going. Sonic teached me to always have at least 50 rings at the end of each level.

See where I'm going?, we, grizzled veterans, are so conditioned to such things that the next new game is just numbers for us, we see the strings, scoff at the pupeteer and we rarely see the show itself.

 

[Hevva]

Dear Every Guy That Does This,

Please stop doing this. Seriously, please. Just stop. Not caring doesn't always mean we're 'child-like' either. It usually just means we couldn't care less about making everything even remotely competitive. Thank you.

Sincerely,

A Lot of Girlfriends and Wives Everywhere.

Heh, sad to say, this isn't something that only men do. I'm really, really bad for it.

Anyhoo, great article. You sound just like me when I was watching my brother play Mass Effect for the first time this year. He had no idea what he was doing (he pretty much destroyed the entire galaxy in the end) but to hell with it, he had fun! All of his in-game death and glory was unique to him. He wasn't thinking about "good" or "bad" endings - he was just thinking about how neat it was that he could shoot someone mid-sentence if they annoyed him too much - while I'm sitting there itching to jump up and say, "But no! If you do X, Y won't happen! Think, man!" He was the one playing properly, I was the one being the asshole. Not saying this knowledge will make biting my tongue any easier, but still, the perspective is nice. Cheers dude.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

After five minutes or so, my girlfriend looked up and saw me playing with my virtual kids, and kissing my virtual wife. Surprised by the gunlessness of it all, she put down her laptop and asked if she could have a go. Now here we are, hours later, and we still haven't swapped back.

In a way, I'm glad. Here's somebody who hasn't played a videogame since Tetris, and she's completely immersed in the story and the action. She's not doing badly either; of the five fights she's gotten into so far, only one has ended in defeat. And I'm impressed that she's paying attention to the plot.Last time I put her in front of Battlefield 3, she just sniggered at the dialogue and mashed the skip button. But this time, she's hasn't raised a single objection; the only sound I hear is the occasional coo of approval.

So, let me get this straight. You get your girlfriend, who, as stated above, is not that into games like Battlefield 3, and who might think that most if not all of gaming is like that, and you get her to play a game like Heavy Rain, with its interesting plot, characters, and mechanics, and she starts enjoying herself, even if she's not doing everything, so your first reaction is to take the controller away and tell her she's doing it wrong?

Wow. All that comes to mind for that thought is a petulant, spoiled child, screaming because his friend wants to play with the toys in a slightly different way. Well done. Nice little hissy fit you have there.

Good on you to realize that might be wrong, though. No, seriously. Good job realizing that someone might be in it for different reasons, that they might be having fun doing what they're doing.

Hey, next time, why don't you try suggesting something? "Hey, you're not gonna check out the body?" would work well in this instance, I imagine. Don't constantly do it, because no one likes to be told what to do all the time, but if you're sharing the experience, then share the experience. Know you might do things differently, and you can do them later, but for the here and now, you're seeing how she plays the game. Suggest things, if you think she'd be interested in the results, but don't commandeer the controller just because she missed a clue, or wanted to say something different.

 

[The Funslinger]

they glance nonplussed at you and give you a used smartie to chew on, and kick you out...

If it's still in smartie form, I dread to think what you mean by a 'used smartie' D:

 

[MrBaskerville]

I know what you're doing wrong.

You're wasting your time with Heavy Rain, arguably one of the most poorly written excuses for David Cage masturbation since Fahrenheit. It's hard to call it a game as much a reflex test, and if it would be a film that it so much desires to be, it would have been laughed to the ground alongside Battlefield Earth.

This!

But atleast you get to do exciting things, such as drinking juice and changing diapers. Would like to see the film adaption, where the main character keeps failing trivial tasks. Atleast the game can be hilarious in small bursts, especially when played in a group.

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

they glance nonplussed at you and give you a used smartie to chew on, and kick you out...

If it's still in smartie form, I dread to think what you mean by a 'used smartie' D:

Sucked so much you cannot tell what colour it originally was...
And possibly still wet...

Actually, definitely still wet...!

 

[SpaceBat]

I know what you're doing wrong.

You're wasting your time with Heavy Rain, arguably one of the most poorly written excuses for David Cage masturbation since Fahrenheit. It's hard to call it a game as much a reflex test, and if it would be a film that it so much desires to be, it would have been laughed to the ground alongside Battlefield Earth.

From now on I'm asking you what I should buy/play, because subjective experiences can no longer exist in gaming.

OT:
I usually only help when people are trying to do something and keep failing at doing so. I don't really have a problem with people making bad decisions, as I actually really enjoy watching how my friends play differently from me.

 

[ResonanceSD]

Organic Storytelling: Defeated by years of conditioning. =D


I'm glad I didn't know about the branches in Spec Ops: The Line until after I played it. They showed me exactly how much of a heartless dumbass I was in my playthrough.

 

[Mr C]

I used to be like this, but after 30 years of playing games I just leave people to it and only help if they ask. Being ancient (by the standards of the avid consumer) most people I know don't play games. Therefore I'm please when they give it a go and don't want to put them off.

I am going to send this article to a friend of mine who reloaded Mass Effect 2 until he got the whole team to survive. He missed out on 'that' Shepard's story in my opinion because he wanted a 'paragon' game. My paragon Shep lost Legion, if you've played Mass Effect 3, you'll know the impact that will have, awesome and dramatic for a goody two-shoes.

 

[Spud of Doom]

Good article. I think I've improved at this sort of behaviour.

 

[Dastardly]

Playing It Properly

If you're experienced with videogames, you're probably playing them wrong.

Read Full Article

Love it! As gamers, we're definitely losing our sense of play. Of course, we're not the only hobby this happens to (we've all had that friend that takes X, Y, or Z hobby too seriously), but it's a symptom of the larger problem: we're forgetting how to have pointless fun, and that's a major loss.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

This was an enjoyable read, and really spoke to me since I'm such a damn perfectionist with these things.

 

[Woodsey]

Wait, you're saying she was impressed by Heavy Rain's writing?

Anyway, reminds me of when I was little and I used to watch my Dad play stuff. I used to blast through and he used to agonisingly inspect everything.

Though he does have his limits. He never even bothered to get the flags/feathers in the Assassin's Creed games.

I got the feathers. And that was the last time I bothered collecting anything.

Thief used to do it right though, since getting the loot fed so directly back into the game itself.

Oh, and I must ask: was this...

And that's fine; I respect developers who trust their work enough to not let players interfere with it too much.

... meant to be ironic? I mean, that's certainly an interesting conclusion to come to when you're talking about games.

 

[SpaceBat]

There's nothing subjective about calling the writing in Heavy Rain bad. Anyone with a single iota of common sense when it comes to writing fiction can tell you that the game/reflex test was nothing but a z-grade soap opera filled with poor characterization, plot holes and nonsense.

Oh my...
I didn't think you'd miss the point of my post (and the entire topic as well, apparently) this badly, although now that I think about it, I really should have seen it coming.

 

[Manji187]

Oh but there IS a correct way to play a game. Some games are just more brutal in the consequences of failure.

If you don't press the right buttons at the right time in RE4 QTEs, you die. If you don't use certain items to unlock things like doors, you don't progress. If you aren't headed in the right direction, you won't reach the next area.

High scores and good endings is one thing, but if you simply cannot progress beyond a certain point, then you probably don't know what to do and are doing the wrong thing, hence the clear lack of progress.

Games still require us to jump through hoops to attain certain goals.

Giving the player too much freedom means risking that they'll use it in fruitless ways in the context of the game. You CAN play GTA IV like it's a huge sandbox with lots of NPCs for you to kill and loot, or a glorified driving simulator. If, hypothetically, that would be the only way you'd play it...then the story (missions) is wasted on you. And, truly, that is where the game shines. It is its core.

Dicking around can be fun for a while, but progress and achievement is what drives gamers to finish a game.