Cliff Bleszinski: "Games Have Become More Linear and Easier"

[Jay520]

I swear some of you people are mentally handicapped. Cliff tells his problems with the industry and how he hopes to change it. Why do you people come in here trying to invalidate his comments by referencing past Gears of War games? Yes, Cliff has been a part of the movement he's scorning. That doesn't make him a hipocrite. He never said Gears of War were never easy & linear. For fuck's sake, the guy's not saying he's exempt from this trend.

The fact that he's trying to make the Gears series harder and more open implies that he knows the Gears games have been too easy/linear. That's not the point. He's not trying to prove that Gears of War doesn't follow this trend. His point is developers (himself included) need to acknowledge that they're headed down a bad path & should make an effort to change that. This is about what he plans to do in the future, not the mistakes he made in the past. He's trying to change that.

Anyway, I somewhat agree with the guy. Yeah, games have higher difficulty settings, but most of the time, this just cheapens the Ai, gives you less health, ect. The core difficulty is still the same, you just stay in cover a bit longer than normal. There's no extra thinking involved, only a bit more skill. You mighy follow the exact same path as the easier difficulties, but instead you spend a few seconds less in the open, or you may get more enemies to kill. Cheap shit like that.

For example, I was playing CoD the other day, and just for kicks, I tried playing on Veteran, and let me tell you, the game got hard. But not in the good way, it was incredibly cheap. The enemies did the exact same movements, same patterns, same tactics, ect. The only difference was they killed you a whole lot quicker. Their gaccuracy was perfect and if you're in their sights for a half of a second, they will kill you. The very moment you pop out of cover, you're getting pumped full of bullets & nearly dead.

The AI was a lot more cheap. Enemies popping out behind windows, walls, ect the moment you cross their designated trigger point. And it was impossible to get through a level without dying on it multiple times. Because you didn't know which object the enemies would pop out from. And as soon as the popped out, they kill you within a second. No one has reflexes fast enough to see, aim and shoot at an enemy that fast. So the only way to complete a level would be by pre-aiming at the objects you know the enemies are hiding at because you've died a few times already.

Too many times, this is what developers do to add difficulty. They make the game incredibly cheap. When you die, it's because there was some cheap sequence that you didn't know about & didn't have time to react to. Not because you didn't play well. You have to learn each level's unique setpieces & trigger scenes before actually having a chance at beating the level. This isn't difficulty. You don't have to think any harder. You just go through the motions, reacting hopefully fast enough. It's cheap.