![]() ![]() And the fact that players have genuinely very little idea of where they are in the story is one of the game’s strengths it just keeps giving and giving. The control design, the upgrade design, the scavenging design, the stealth design, it’s all sublime. The Last Of Us is nearly flawless in design, in my opinion. Again, you are essentially given, within the first hour, a 5-part guide as to how far through the game you are. There are only five toolboxes in the game. Related: Eight Strange Celebrity Cameos in Video Games You find toolboxes which let you upgrade weapons more. But what’s worse is that to upgrade the guns fully you need Tool levels. Sure, you know how many guns there are in the game, so you roughly know where you are in the game’s progression (for example, when there’s only one gun left, you’ll know you’re near the game’s last part). A tab for Holsters which will let you have two long or short weapons on the quick-access inventory instead of just one. ![]() Look at the Workbench and what do you see? At the top of the screen, a tab for the 9mm pistol. This makes them carry more shots, reload quicker, be more precise. The player uses up Parts, scavenged bits of metal, to work on guns and improve them. Throughout the game are littered Crafting Workbenches, the ones where you upgrade your guns. From before you’ve even unlocked one.Īs per Pacing, The Last Of Us is the least offensive on the list for this specific problem. Notice at the bottom that you can see every. Here you can see Tomb Raider’s skill tree. Again, the freedom and usefulness and mystery which the game could provide is undermined by menu and upgrade design choices which ruin all suspense as early as the game’s introduction. In Tomb Raider, I can see the best ability in the game from day one. In Older Metroidvania or action adventure games like Metroid, or Zelda, or even new ones like Batman: Arkham Asylum, progression steps were unlocked until you gained new abilities, and you didn’t even know what those abilities were. ![]() But in Tomb Raider, there’s only one set of abilities, none of which interact. Those systems were complex and the differing abilities were designed to be combined and toyed with, to see what the best combinations on offer were. ![]() This isn’t like old RPG skill trees, where you could see stat-buffing abilities and moves from the get-go. But, just like in Bioshock Infinite, the player can see all of the abilities from the get go. These are Tier I abilities – unlock five of them, and you gain access to Tier II abilities, which will give you more specialised customization and freedom within Lara’s toolset. The ability to be more accurate with weapons. The ability to get more loot from animals corpses. They can see the abilities which she should be initially getting. It’s exactly the opposite of what a game’s design should do.Īlmost equally bad is Tomb Raider, though this is slightly more forgivable.įrom Tomb Raider’s introductory section, the instant Skills are introduced, the player can see every tier of ability available to Lara Croft. The game has such a regimented design ethic, again in contrast with its beautiful, flexible world, that the player’s actions and gameplay choices are obviously prescribed, obviously made already. Showing You All Its Game Design Cards From The First Secondīioshock Infinite just shows you everything immediately. Infinite’s messed up pacing does an awful naught-to-sixty pacing jump half an hour in, where Tomb Raider does the opposite, its first minutes are a woefully directed narrative rush, which slows down as the game goes on.īut the final issue? Its something which potentially spoils tension that any of the games have. Part the second referred to something which I think fundamentally almost breaks Tomb Raider and Bioshock Infinite: pacing. Each of these three games have some fundamental problems, be it AI awareness being blocked by invisible walls or AI having blunt and basic movements despite complex and intricate levels. Part the first pertained to levels, artificial intelligence, and the irreconcilable problems which arise in their interaction. I’m picking on them because, despite occasional voiced grievances, they are pretty much the gold children of the year so far in action adventure games. Those games, again, are The Last Of Us, Bioshock Infinite, and Tomb Raider. Without further ado, let’s wrap up this three-part diatribe on the problems I found with the three biggest action games of the year this far. ![]()
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