Will we ever see the “perfect” Video Game?

[PKerr]

Obviously your intellect is far above us common folk to understand what I'm talking about, for such a smart fella I honestly don't understand why you can't see where I'm coming from.
I don't have the time or energy to explain it to you.

You're the one making gross assumptions on the development process even after admitting you don't know how it works. I linked you to some reading material, either check it out or don't. No skin off my nose.

Dude, again your being totally anal about what I'm saying.
when I say I don't understand the process I'm talking about "me" sitting down in front of a computer and making a video game.

Let me try to make it simple because maybe you not as smart as you think you are.

Why can't a guy that can take a DVD player apart piece by piece, know exactly how part "A" burns to disk "B" to make a cute little movie not know how to set the clock on said DVD player?
The clock/save system is one of the most basic pieces of the machine.

Why can a developer make graphics to die for not make a decent save system?

You're saying time and money.

I say bullshit, that stuff is basic and should be a given.

 

[firehawk12]

actually, the perfect game came out in 1991, it was called "The Secret of Monkey Island"

Roberta Williams will MAKE YOU HER BITCH.

 

[darthraidr]

a game that will be regarded as perfect by everyone? nope. it's subjective.

as for people screwing up making games... if you are so passionate about making a perfect game, perhaps you should try. you will quickly learn that it can take just one person in a position of power to easily screw up a game.

 

[unimatrix7]

Obviously your intellect is far above us common folk to understand what I'm talking about, for such a smart fella I honestly don't understand why you can't see where I'm coming from.
I don't have the time or energy to explain it to you.

You're the one making gross assumptions on the development process even after admitting you don't know how it works. I linked you to some reading material, either check it out or don't. No skin off my nose.

Dude, again your being totally anal about what I'm saying.
when I say I don't understand the process I'm talking about "me" sitting down in front of a computer and making a video game.

Let me try to make it simple because maybe you not as smart as you think you are.

Why can't a guy that can take a DVD player apart piece by piece, know exactly how part "A" burns to disk "B" to make a cute little movie not know how to set the clock on said DVD player?
The clock/save system is one of the most basic pieces of the machine.

Why can a developer make graphics to die for not make a decent save system?

You're saying time and money.

I say bullshit, that stuff is basic and should be a given.

It's not even worth making a rational argument against this shit you're dribbling because you clearly have no idea what the hell you're on about. Meanwhile, a perfect game already exists. It's called Shenmue.

 

[firehawk12]

It's not even worth making a rational argument against this shit you're dribbling because you clearly have no idea what the hell you're on about. Meanwhile, a perfect game already exists. It's called Shenmue.

Shenmue 3, no with co-op forklift driving?

Anyhoo, I don't think it's sort of useful to think of the "perfect game". At best, you might say what's the perfect "sports game" or the perfect FPS or the perfect RPG or the perfect music rhythm game, etc.

And, I guess we're still in the "birth pangs" of the medium - if we use film as an analogy, we just figured out how to record a sound track and sync it up with the images - so, we may be getting ahead of ourselves.

 

[Mistral]

The closest to a perfect game I've ever seen was Tetris. And I hate it. So its all subjective. But I think the OP had a few valid points-how many people have to post to how many game blogs before developers come on board with a few basic, universal concepts.
Let us save at will.
Point the camera at the action, not an adjacent wall, rock or tree.
Repetition is not fun-its monotonous.
Do not make me go through the same boring, easy to accomplish tasks after dying in order to get back to the point where the actual challenge lies.(of course, save at will helps that issue.)
Cutscenes should always be an option, not mandatory. And when I hit Start or "A" it should jump me past the damn things.
The real world exists in 3 dimensions-don't tell me my flying craft can't go UP!

etc, etc, ad nauseum.

 

[gh4chiefs]

Why can a developer make graphics to die for not make a decent save system?

You're saying time and money.

I say bullshit, that stuff is basic and should be a given.

I think I get where PKerr is coming from. We get these otherwise awesome games but yet sometimes they totally misfire on some of the simplest details, that as he says, should be a given.

Look despite my prior rant, I do have a lot of respect for the creativity and technical brilliance of these game developer/programmers. But it amazing to me how many time that somebody in the process somewhere is missing obvious things. Back to my rant about GTA, again, how could they be so oblivious to how much "not fun" playing a long driving sequence over and over and over is? If it was too hard to have a "save at any point" feature, couldn't they have just made it where you didn't have to drive all the way across the map to get to the mission? That's the kind of thing that I don't get and I REALLY don't get why they don't see that.

 

[LightSith]

However, my perfect game already exists - Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I love this game and wouldn't change a thing. Everything about it is so perfect, from the music to the way you zoom in on enemies. It also has the perfect rising level of difficulty...every step of the way is challenging but not impossible, and over time your skill level increases greatly without you even realizing it. After finishing the game, you go back to the beginning and think, "wow I can't believe I had a hard time with this, it's so easy now!" The story is great, the characters, the interconnectedness of everything, the way you get maps and weapons, etc. I love this game, could you tell? I can't think of one negative thing about it.

Amen. Best game ever made, at least for me.

 

[TheBrew]

Why can a developer make graphics to die for not make a decent save system?

You're saying time and money.

I say bullshit, that stuff is basic and should be a given.

I think I get where PKerr is coming from. We get these otherwise awesome games but yet sometimes they totally misfire on some of the simplest details, that as he says, should be a given.

Look despite my prior rant, I do have a lot of respect for the creativity and technical brilliance of these game developer/programmers. But it amazing to me how many time that somebody in the process somewhere is missing obvious things. Back to my rant about GTA, again, how could they be so oblivious to how much "not fun" playing a long driving sequence over and over and over is? If it was too hard to have a "save at any point" feature, couldn't they have just made it where you didn't have to drive all the way across the map to get to the mission? That's the kind of thing that I don't get and I REALLY don't get why they don't see that.

Yeah I don't mind the save system in TFU a smidgen as much as the GTA games. It's the reason why I will never beat the game. Now I don't really care about a 'save anywhere' feature, but at least save before the action starts. A good example (and in TFU's favor) I was fighting the Raxxus Prime boss last week and got him to the first check point. After a few more times, I turned it off. I pick it up again last night and I start at the same check point, no cutscenes or anything. When there is a cut-scene after a checkpoint, at least it lasts 10 sec. Better than 2+ minutes of driving.

 

[OdoWanKenobi]

Perfection is purely subjective. I feel that there have already been several perfect games made. Just a few would include Chrono Trigger, Ocarina of Time, and Knights of The Old Republic.

 

[darthraidr]

The closest to a perfect game I've ever seen was Tetris. And I hate it. So its all subjective. But I think the OP had a few valid points-how many people have to post to how many game blogs before developers come on board with a few basic, universal concepts.
Let us save at will.
Point the camera at the action, not an adjacent wall, rock or tree.
Repetition is not fun-its monotonous.
Do not make me go through the same boring, easy to accomplish tasks after dying in order to get back to the point where the actual challenge lies.(of course, save at will helps that issue.)
Cutscenes should always be an option, not mandatory. And when I hit Start or "A" it should jump me past the damn things.
The real world exists in 3 dimensions-don't tell me my flying craft can't go UP!

etc, etc, ad nauseum.

Saving at will is a neat idea. but it can also break the intended flow of a game. it also isnt needed for a lot of games (does guitar hero need a save a will feature?)

it's also possible that a player saves themself into a situation that they cannot escape from. not a fun situation to allow.

 

[Trubinator]

Most likely not, but I'm still hoping....

 

[firehawk12]

Well, the good thing about GTA4 is that they put in the taxis as an auto travel feature. It's still an annoyance, but I guess they wanted to preserve "realism" (which makes no sense considering the rest of the game, of course...)

 

[Arrqh]

Well sure, lets take GTA4 as an example.

It's been a while since I played, but as I recall you can only save your game from a safe house. This is important because it means the save file does not contain any information on the state of any cars or npcs. Except for the few parking zones you can leave cars in, of course. So if you load up a saved game and walk outside and then load up that same game and walk outside you'll see different cars and different people walking around. But it totally isn't noticeable because you never pay attention to specific cars. But in a mission you do. You need to start saving the states of any npcs involved in the mission (friendly and enemy) you need to save the states of any cars they were driving, of any cars that you were driving and are still nearby or in use, their damage and condition, etc.

And this causes a few things to happen. First, they now have to spend more effort coding their save system to make it more robust. This goes back to the time/budget thing. Do they have the programmer time to spend on that? Do they have to sacrifice time on another feature for it? And then there's the technical fallout... does this make saving and loading games take longer? How much longer? Is it acceptable? Does it pass MS/Sony requirements? How large are the file sizes now? How many car states can you save? Etc etc.

So the point is, it's very easy to say "oh, a game should let you save everywhere." The reality is that every single design and technical choice has an associated cost that has to be considered.

 

[firehawk12]

Well, there's no reason why they have to dump you at a hospital when you die. They could at least just let you keep your weapons and dump you at the mission start.

In fact, that's actually what the "mission retry" function does. Except there's no reason to use it because if you die, you have to go buy body armor and ammo all over again.

 

[Arrqh]

Well yeah. The whole hospital thing was annoying and pretty pointless.

I'm not saying that they made all the right choices (I think that no dev team has ever made the right choice on everything because, well, they're people ), just that there are a lot more things to consider then just "wouldn't it be nice if I could save anywhere." It's one thing to not like how something was implemented and it's another to try and understand why, from a technical and design perspective, that choice was made.

 

[Timby]

At least in Grand Theft Auto IV, you only lose your weapons and ammunition if you're arrested. The hospital doesn't take your guns.

 

[firehawk12]

Well yeah. The whole hospital thing was annoying and pretty pointless.

I'm not saying that they made all the right choices (I think that no dev team has ever made the right choice on everything because, well, they're people ), just that there are a lot more things to consider then just "wouldn't it be nice if I could save anywhere." It's one thing to not like how something was implemented and it's another to try and understand why, from a technical and design perspective, that choice was made.

Well, one stupid design choice they still haven't escaped from is the whole long, multi-tier levels where if you die at the end, you have to restart right from the beginning.
It's almost retro in its design. I think that bank heist level in GTA4 is what annoys people... for me it was the last mission.

 

[Mistral]

Arrrghman-I'm paying $60+ a game-they can damn well work out the associated costs so the game plays right. My life sucks up most of my cash so when I buy a game I research, then I carefully pick and choose. I can't afford to go-"Cool game. I'll buy it." anytime I want. When I do buy one I want the frustrations of bad engineering/design to be solved. I've been lucky-the few games I've bought in the last 12 months have been winners-except for that awful on-line experience called Halo3. Most expensive coaster I ever bought, and a great example of some of the ranting in this thread. You put all that time and $ into designing the most-hyped game in years and when the (very important) online feature is revealed you have sticky grenades that don't stick, players walking around with bullet-proof heads, inaccurate ballistic arcs where thrown objects are concerned and stuff like that. The last time I played, I put a grenade at an opponent's feet. He stood on it shooting at me and the detonation didn't even phase him. Not what you call smooth gameplay. They had to know the volume of players they were going to get-but it doesn't look like they planned for it.
Then I go play COD4-and end up asking, "If they could do it, why can't Bungie?"

 

[dragunzng]

My personal view is that making games isn't a science, it's an art, and since we'll never have the perfect painting, movie or book, we'll never have the perfect game.

I believe the period we're in right now is analogous to the early days of color in film, videogames are still largely and almost entirely driven by technology, for better or worse. There's still work and experimentation going on with graphics and visuals, gameplay design and A.I as well as sound. When we get to a stage where the technology has settled somewhat, we'll start to see some remarkable things from the medium.