Lessons I have learned from playing other peoples' games:
From
Champions Of Norrath: You know, my stories aren't good. They're not even okay... they're stupid. They're just thrown in to give you a reason to play. But they are
light years beyond the mumbo-jumbo, phlebotnum-riddled, utterly insipid
trash that 'commercial' games are made of. I mean, they
pay people to make quests like "I don't feel like going back to my daddy's house. Find my five lost kittens for me, and I will." Now, that's a quest I'd totally use in my games, but that's because my games are dumb! They're supposed to be! I recognize the dumbness of a quest like that! They're trying to make a serious heroic adventure! And the dialogue. Oh heavens...
From
Guild Wars: Just throwing in another fine example of horrendously bad dialogue and voice acting that is
so bad that I don't even understand what made them choose to put it in the game, as opposed to complete silence. Or just asking their little sister in kindergarten to read the words on the page, because you know she wouldn't be half as bad as Danika in this game. You know, they
pay people to do this stuff. Okay, moving on.
From
Anarchy Online: I was concerned about how many different controls there are in Loonyland 2, and all the different numbers you have to think about and can juggle around. Then I played this ridiculous game. I literally spent 2 minutes trying to figure out what it meant by "drag and drop" (hint: it's not "drag the icon over there and drop it"!), and you don't wanna know how hard it was to figure out how to exit the game (hint: clicking "exit to windows" has
no effect). Then there are the things you do when you level up, scattering literally thousands of points across about 50 different attributes. Then there's the equipment - do I wear the armor that gives 1, 2, 1, 1, 3, 5 to electrical, physical, acid, chemical, energy, and ionic damage, or this other one with 2, 4, 2, 1, 1, 3 to a completely different set of damages? You know what, I have to stop. There's just no way I can explain how deeply wrong this game is. Much like the voice acting in guild wars, I'm just aghast that they shipped a game that plays like this. That they expect human beings to derive joy from it. That they didn't think "maybe the Exit To Windows button should exit the game!" or "it might be difficult to compare armors given that they have 20 different kinds of damage, maybe we should have it show little arrows whether the armor is better than what you are wearing"... or maybe "how about less types of damage!?" And oh the camera controls, and movement controls, and every other aspect of it. It's INSANE! No wonder WoW instantly rose to complete domination of the MMO market. These games are unplayable! All they had to do was make a game where the buttons do what they say they do, and they're #1.
From
Every Round-Up Game I've Ever Reviewed: Man, games are horrible.
So overall, I'm just left feeling good about myself. I don't even have to do a good job, and it's still going to be one of the best things out there. Maybe it's me... I just see things differently. Well, according to my eyes, it's gonna be fun. And Anarchy Online ISN'T. Let's hope others share my unique vision of entertainment.
