The gaming industry has gotten bigger and better with each passing year, but sometimes it just doesn’t do things right. Whether it’s gameplay, story, pricing, or business practices, sometimes the industry needs a little friendly fire from gamers to keep it in line.
Other times, developers look down their sights and fire off a well placed bullet right into our thrilled heads. This is Josh & Cameron, and today we have a special guest for Headshots & Friendly Fire.
A Bit of Friendly Fire
French Voice Actors
Name your favorite French voice actor. I’ll wait…okay, time’s up. You probably couldn’t think of one, because it seems like most French voice actors couldn’t do an American accent if their lives depended on it. I’m sure the French are a wonderful people with many fine qualities, but an American accent is their Achilles’ heel. David Cage has stated that he is considering using American actors for his next game. Apparently, I’m not the first person to express this opinion. It’s very noble of David Cage to give voice-acting work to his fellow countrymen (especially in this economy), but I’m sure they could find jobs doing terrible voice acting for White Knight Chronicles 2.
FRAGnStein A Mess
I love a good peripheral as much as the next guy, especially when it is designed to give me the feel of using a mouse on my PS3 when I am playing a shooter. In comes the FRAGnStein, and with it comes the bundle of mess that is setting up the damned thing. Hook it up to your PS3–oh, it doesn’t sync–okay, plug it into to your PC and install the drivers. OH WAIT, the drivers don’t seem to want to work, so your PC does not recognize the device. On top of that, when new games are patched for the device, you have to go online and get the drivers for that game. Is it too much to ask that the device plug in and start working?
Wimpy Big Daddies
I’m a Big Daddy. I want to be super-overpowered–a tank that can take thousands of bullets. I don’t want a drill that takes 3 hits to kill someone, and to have to dodge behind cover after taking only a few bullets. Controlling an overpowered character in a game can work. If you can kill anything you want with just one hit of your drill, then you need to make sure that the game isn’t too easy. That’s why you restrict the movement of the character. Make the Big Daddy walk slow. Enemies may be able to move a lot faster than you, but if you ever catch them, they’re as good as dead. Imagine slowly making your way towards a splicer with a Tommy gun, being sprayed with hundreds of bullets, and then taking your drill and plunging it through his chest. Then a Big Sister shows up, and you have to run away, but you can’t out run the Big Sister because you’re wrapped in two tons of iron. Now, the all-powerful Big Daddy has become weak and helpless in the shadow of the Big Sister. I don’t care who you are, everybody would love to play that game.
Upgrading Weapons
In some games, having to upgrade your weapons feels a little dated. God of War isn’t about upgrading weapons. It’s about tearing out a centaur’s intestines and using them as a jump rope. Once I unlock the Hades Blades, I shouldn’t have to spend time to make them more powerful. They should be perfectly capable of getting me through the game as is. I would feel the same way if Uncharted 2 made me upgrade the guns. I should be completely focused on how to position myself during a firefight so that I can take out the enemies, not about whether I want my pistol to do slightly more damage. Upgrading weapons is still very fun in games like Ratchet & Clank and Resident Evil. These are the games where I would want to go back to a previous area and just grind so that my gun can hold 100 bullets or shoot buzz saws that also perform free colonoscopies. God of War 3 and Uncharted 2 are both very linear games, and the first playthrough is always the best. I don’t want the experience to be bogged down with micromanagement. Final Fantasy and Demon’s Souls can have their textbooks filled with weapon statistics, just as long as the only math I have to do in Uncharted 3 is counting the number of dudes I kill.
