PullusPardus said:
tl-dr version is i'm not talking about Sandbox/open world games so i recommend reading.
okay, so i've given a lot of thoughts on why exactly that i don't like what a lot of people love about popular games, like Call Of Duty, Uncharted, Gears of War, and before you just throw me down and show me pictures of how good uncharted looks and how so good is the shooting of Gears, or tell me i'm a fanboy blah blah blah, please, i'm going to try the best i can to not "insult" your precious games, i'm also going to make it much easier to read this by making comparisions so here goes!
one thing about a lot of popular video games that are highly regarded by games, is linearity, a lot of people talk about the storyline, the graphics, the campaign the online, but are missing an important factor here, nope, its not RPG elements, nor character interactions, or lots of sidemissions and content. and before you guess, NO! i'm not talking about gameplay , yup i got you, its not the gameplay in a sense. but its the linearity of the gameplay, or better yet, the ability of the game to be played over and over without it feeling the same or repetitive, for example! lets compare some games for better understanding, and i'll start with one of the dearest games around.
Uncharted series.
yes, to me the Uncharted series is never going to be a classic, why's that you-filthy-fucking-hipster-asshole-trying-to-get-attention you say? , well its because this game's replay value is very slim, the game is very linear, it hand hold the player a lot... or should i say all the time actually, for example, drake finds himself in a burning factory and you have to get out, so what does the game do? show you the exit and create an invisible hallway for you to just move forward and mow down everyone infront of you, you only have one place to go, BUT thats not the only linear thing about it, you only have ONE way to do it, you don't have to think of way yourself, the game actually tells you how to do it, and THATS what i mean by linearity, now imagine you playing it again, it won't change. you will do the exact same thing you did last time, and if you play it again you will do it again and again and again, so the game is just one time play and just forget it exist and move on to the sequel, its NOT a classic, and once you play it you've played it, unlike for example Half Life which you can mess around with stuff, and can do a lot of stuff that don't involve one single mechanic.
Now this is common on other games like Gears Of War, Call Of Duty, Mass Effect,Assassins Creed....
Wait Wtf asshole how come you compare these games together? , they're not the same! , and WTF you idiot Assassins Creed is a sandbox , and Mass Effect has multiple choices to make! , its not linear at all!
Well to answer that last bit, Mass Effect is VERY linear, if you actually broke it down to pieces , like all bioware ganes, you find it actually very linear in it's gameplay, since the only nonelinear is the character interactions and conversations, the way you do the missions is always the same, either you pick whatever class, you still have to go from point a to point b, you can't stategize (Valkyria Chronicles) and thinking outside the box about how to accomplish the mission (Deus Ex)
But i also mentioned Assassins Creed, now thats a tricky game to explain since to most people being a sandbox game means its not linear, which isn't true, how? , you see in ass creed when you play you are actually put in city you are free to explore around and jump around, but when it comes to doing the quests themselves , the game becomes just another Uncharted/Gears/whateverlineargame, but thats not all! , Assassins Creed is very known for telling you EXACTLY what you have to do, like a mother hand feeding her child, you will have all these cool gadgets and gizmos that you want to use and manupilate, but the game forces you do to one thing because it thinks you you are dumb and can't think for yourself, its true that some missions offer a bit sense of freedom of doing things, but they all have a very specific way of doing it, UNLIKE for example the HITMAN series, you see that game, they never exactly tell you what to do and where to go , and where you do it, you just have to play around with stuff and with each time you play a mission you discover a new thing you haven't seen before because the game didn't say "HEY LOOK THERE IS SHIT HAPPENING IN THERE, ISN'T THAT FREAKING COOL!?!?!"
and thats about what i think about linearity, feel free to discuss, and sue/flame/troll/hatemeforlife.
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