pearcinator said:
Zelda: Majora's Mask - I know the 3-day cycle time limitation is contentious amongst some players but take the time aspect out and you notice that almost every NPC in the game has a predefined schedule that they follow (until input by Link changes their schedule). More games should have this, it makes things feel more realistic, AI in games has improved substantially since the year 2000 but Majora's Mask remains impressive to me because of how they programmed each NPC to follow a daily schedule.
I also can't think of many other games that has a 'Groundhog Day' repeating cycle system. Apart from Majora's Mask and The Sexy Brutale.
It's not exactly like this, but it reminds me of the 3 day time limit for the first couple Dead Rising games, and foolishly made optional in the next while stupidly abandoning it in the most recent one. You had to try and figure out, likely after losing several times and restarting where any given objective and survivor was and when, how to get them to safety, and how to beat any psychopath in a timely manner in order to rescue everyone or even get all the way through the story. This added a level of frantic challenge to the game but it was also fair about it. Most games either have little to no real difficulty because developers are terrified of risking alienating potential customers by providing challenge especially these days or are insanely difficult, designed to be impossible for a normal human being no matter how skilled to complete on the first try without the abilities of precognition and/or superhuman reaction times to win without failing repeatedly first.
Now, this is a online Flash game so not many may have heard of it. "How to Raise A Dragon" is a game that where you play as a dragon and determine it's fate. The game provides book entries written like something out of a nature documentary that provides suggestions to the player of what they may be capable doing as a dragon. The game is very short, but it does a good job of making the player actually
feel like they are living a dragon's life for the brief moment it lasts, and that is what I'm most interested in. Not only have I found very few games that let you play as something other than a human or something that might as well be human (Elf, Orc, Humanoid Alien, etc.) but I have found hardly any games that plays in a manner that really makes me feel like I AM that thing. A zombie, vampire, werewolf, dragon, whatever, I want a LOT more games that allow me to experience what it's like to be some other being in it's entirety to the furthest extent possible rather than in an extremely superficial manner like the few games that have the ability to play as something else, and not in a temporary thing either, like a transformation or something but as the whole game.
I'd also like to seem more games do something akin to how the Gothic games do weapon proficiency. With the vast majority of other games there is no actual difference in a character's animations or stance to indicate an increase in ability whether you're a level 1 noob character or a level 100 god of swordfighting. Gothic has the player start off barely being able to wield a weapon at all, only being able to hold it in two hands with slow, clearly clumsy, and ultimately weaker swings that are strongly telegraphed. As you gain training however you become more and more effective with the given weapon in general, the animations and stance change as your skill level increases, your swings becoming faster, more graceful, and more damaging. NPCs are the same way with how effective they are with weapons, and their own animations and stance help telegraph how effective they are when you're fighting them.
Both comes down to creating an experience that allows the player to feel like they are what they are playing as. Doing so is really the whole point of video games, but few games really accomplish that.
