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happydolphin on 12 March 2012
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RolStoppable said:
happydolphin said:
DKHustlin said:
So why doesn't he just make movies? One huge problem with his idea is having context sensitive actions will make his game as linear as can be because you can only do certain actions in a certain context so there will be no room for any other way to play the game if everyone is gong to play the game the exact same way just make a movie. The beauty of games is having core mechanics because it allows different players to have different play styles and it allows a gradual evolution of the mechanics, which is the while pint of playing a game

You know that some of gaming's biggest classics (MegaMan, Castlevania, Ninja Gaiden, SMB) are fully linear, right?

You know that you just made an idiotic statement, right?

Mega Man not only allows you to choose the order you play the stages in, but the weapons you earn by defeating bosses can alter the way you tackle these stages. For example, having the Rush Jet gives you the option to bypass an otherwise challenging platforming section.

Castlevania has various subweapons which is once again an interesting choice. Castlevania 2 used a more Metroid-like structure while the third game allowed you to choose your path and consequently your second playable character.

Ninja Gaiden is more linear than the others, but it too has subweapons. It really is the weakest series out of the bunch you named though.

Super Mario Bros. has power-ups, different ways to defeat enemies (jumping on their heads, kicking a Koopa shell into them) as well as pipes and beanstalks that allow you to bypass parts of the stage or entire worlds altogether. Super Mario Bros. 3 gives you even more choices with a myriad of power-ups and plenty of split paths on the world map.

Especially Mega Man and SMB can be replayed over and over, because you have so many options in how you play the games.

I think I poorly disambiguated linearity with pre-programmed actions. If I was unclear I apologize. I'm sorry if I get under your skin so easily it must be really irritating.

When DKHustlin said that games that are pre-programmed are linear, I wanted to show him that games that aren't pre-programmed can also be linear, and I gave him a few examples, 1 of which was ambiguous: Megaman.

In other words, games like Castlevania 1/III or Ninja Gaiden are linear though they aren't pre-programmed. I was simply trying to show that linearity wasn't his issue, but the lack of free form or game action freedom.

But it all culminates in the fact that Cage is not advocating cinematic adventures per se, but just context-driven action, like in Conker. Said actions could be performed better or worse by different players of different levels of skill, so long as that freedom is designed in the game. (more on that in my reply to Truck). Let's be proactive and exert to disambiguate, and try not to exasperate the fans of said directions by misunderstanding their advocates.

What I meant by looking for holes, I was mostly referring to Simon's Quest, where the retort added not much value to the constructive direction the thread was following up until then and did little to remove from my argument, and also made me falsely think I henceforth had to provide superfluous disambiguating details in my contributions than needed in a community of informed gamers. You don't need to apologize for anything by the way, I need to learn to work with you from where you are, and you with me.