Let's say you were playing Street Fighter. You've mastered your special moves and combos, but before you can beat the final boss and claim your title as the world champion, you have to score 10,000 points in a game of Tetris. Not only that, it's never even been hinted at that the game is going to depend on your puzzle gaming skills. Yeah, you're awesome and you can knock this out of the park without even trying but does it make it better when the game throws you a curveball like this?
I was playing Dead Space last night and really getting into a rhythm. Had my stereo turned up, the bass booming, and enjoying the atmosphere. It was great. I was building up my attributes, improving my weapons, and managing my inventory. I was doing every thing I needed to do to survive the alien outbreak that I found myself in the middle of. Little did I know that my fun was going to come to a screeching halt. Somebody thought it was a good idea to toss in a first person game of "Asteroids". Suddenly, my joy turned into frustration. Even though I'm the type of gamer that plays many different types of genres, I found myself dying again and again at this scene. Why are my survival horror skills suddenly dependent on my ability to play a twitch shooter?
And it's not just Dead Space. Gears of War 2 did this when your gunplay skills, honed over the course of several hours of third person shooting suddenly took a back seat and your progress was dictated by how well you could drive a vehicle over a frozen lake. Donkey Kong 64 pulled the rug out from under me when I had to stop playing my state of the art 3D platformer and suddenly play the original 80's Donkey Kong game. This wasn't what I signed up for!
Personally, I think that if a game is suddenly going to switch things up, they need to make it a pretty easy set piece. Add the variety but skip out on the frustration. Every rule that has been built up thus far doesn't need to be thrown out of the window, does it?
How do you feel about this? Way of the future or the insane ramblings of a sexy, sexy, man? Discuss.
