Zero Punctuation: Star Trek
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
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Why are these movie-licensed games so terrible most of the time? Do they hire morons for all of them? Do they screw them over with the release dates? Fucking hell! This shouldn't be ignored. It makes games look inferior to movies in some peoples miserable minds.
Also, I want to hear about more games with space combat which is another genre that's hidden under all the grey FPS garbage.
Also, I want to hear about more games with space combat which is another genre that's hidden under all the grey FPS garbage.
There are a few problems with licensed games, most of the time it has to do with the demands put on the developing team.Nazulu said:
Most of the time the developers are put into crunch time to release the game alongside the movie release, so they have very little time to rush out a project.
Secondly, there's a problem with translating a two-hour movie into a 10-hour or however long game, so there needs to be a lot of filler that isn't necessarily relevant to the movie.
Thirdly, and I'm almost positive this happened with this particular game, publishers will push developers to throw in any mechanic that's popular into the game because they think it will get them sales.
Publisher: "Cover-based shooters are really popular right now. We need to have this in the game!"
Developer: "But sir, we're already two months into development and--"
P: "I don't care, we need to have it! Throw it in!"
Instead of being built around a core mechanic, it's an unfocused, half-assed amalgamation of whatever mechanics are popular at the time, with little thought put into how to implement them.
Yeah, that sounds like the best bet. I've been rambling on lately about how publishers should just back off and have no say in the creative work at all (unless it's like spending too much on something). I just thought after all this time of making this same mistake for over a decade now that they would wise up.Taunta said:
Maybe the developers should ask in advanced if they're suddenly going to fuck everything up at some point so they can at least aim to make it smaller and have more time to do that well.
Why are Star Trek games so... unstar trekkie?
Guys: It's a bunch of dudes going around in space as ambassadors and exploring new worlds. How can people miss this point so absolutely?
Make all alien races humanoids, make em pork-able and there's the original saga right there. Next generation? I dunno, introduce a space menace going around the unknown systems messing around and the federation refusing to do anything about it due to politics until you give them proof, so you're just going around whistle blowing for proof. Dammit, make space battles incredibly hard so you get used to going around blockades instead of engaging so you make the player REALLY feel what its like to be going around uncharted space. You're not supposed to be able to fight against everything, you need to feel the LACK of federation and something to fall back on. Deep Space 9? Well... add a sim about life inside the ship, complete with having to recruit from people living in there and dinamically generated crew. Multiplayer? Have extra players be able to take command of other crew members or add additional ships.
Hell, I just included Voyager in there without realizing because It just makes sense if you think about it for five whole minutes instead of half assing a shooter/sim/adventure/action game and slapping the Star Trek label on it.
Guys: It's a bunch of dudes going around in space as ambassadors and exploring new worlds. How can people miss this point so absolutely?
Make all alien races humanoids, make em pork-able and there's the original saga right there. Next generation? I dunno, introduce a space menace going around the unknown systems messing around and the federation refusing to do anything about it due to politics until you give them proof, so you're just going around whistle blowing for proof. Dammit, make space battles incredibly hard so you get used to going around blockades instead of engaging so you make the player REALLY feel what its like to be going around uncharted space. You're not supposed to be able to fight against everything, you need to feel the LACK of federation and something to fall back on. Deep Space 9? Well... add a sim about life inside the ship, complete with having to recruit from people living in there and dinamically generated crew. Multiplayer? Have extra players be able to take command of other crew members or add additional ships.
Hell, I just included Voyager in there without realizing because It just makes sense if you think about it for five whole minutes instead of half assing a shooter/sim/adventure/action game and slapping the Star Trek label on it.
Who keeps buying these terrible tie-in games? Haven't people learned by now that they are just marketing ploys? I am baffled.
If they made a startrek game where the point was to fly around being a nice ambassador of starfleet without having sex with green-skinned chicks, I would not play it.corronchilejano said:
Giving the subject more serious thought, how many Startrek movies don't involve someone getting shot/killed? I think it's just StarTrek IV. So is that the exception to the rule or are folks just not working hard enough to find compelling story lines that don't involve bloody mayhem? I'm not sure.
Actually, the idea of a non-fighting based game is hard to sell. Think about all the quests in Skyrim and other games where you had to do something WITHOUT killing someone. After a while I realized they were there because the the other quests that awesome fighting and killing monsters would actually become monotonous without something to break it up. This says to me that everyone pretty much expects First Person games to be about Shooting(or in the case of Skyrim-Stabbing, Slicing, Smashing or Shouting). If you really want a non-fighting game, you need to get away from FPS.
HAHA, my thoughts exactly. Can't believe they wasted money making this game thinking it'd be anything but utter failure. Also there's already enough Kirk-Spock bromance in the goddamned movie, didn't need a whole game to elaborate on that part.Frieswiththat said: