Time for ‘die & retry’ to just die!
So I have been trying to finish up the PSP game Medal of Honor Heroes 2 on the hardest difficulty level this weekend, and despite having finished it already on the lower difficulty level I am still having to grind my way through area after area due to an old fall-back of game design -‘die & retry’.
‘Die & Retry’ is a situation where the developers don’t really expect you to live through the first time … or perhaps the first several. They set up a scenario where you will have to slowly uncover the secret to getting through an area by, well, dying repeatedly and having to keep retrying. This is done in pretty much every action-based genre – shooters, RPG’s, adventure games, and so on. But shooters are probably the worst – and console shooters the worst of the worst – because they combine gauntlet runs with enemies that appear from nowhere with limited ammo and quite often time limits.
That is the scenario I faced – having to ‘escape’ the V2 rocket production facility I had just sabotaged. Once I press the button to open the first door a timer starts – and enemies start appearing. You take out some enemies and move to the next area to open another door, and then find that more enemies have impossibly appeared in the 8′ x 12′ sealed room where you hit the last switch. So you take them out while also dealing with other spawning enemies who can see where to shoot because of their mega-vision and never have to reload because of … oh, who am I kidding, at this point the game is just cheating wildly to make it exciting. And exciting it is, as you die after the second switch and reload so you can have another go, armed with some more knowledge. You make it to the third bunker this time, and then get picked off from a bridge that was empty before … and that you had crossed form another sealed area. Fine. Try again – and get a bit further, but in your caution you run out of time just as you see the final door raise.
Eventually you will either give up the game forever or win – and crazy that I am I stuck it out WAY past when I planned to go to bed. This was a 10 minute section that took me nearly THREE HOURS of dying and retrying … and stopped being any fun after about thirty minutes. Setting up this scenario required violating many rules of reasonable game design:
- Don’t have the game cheat in a way that is obvious to the player by having enemies suddenly start shooting without ever seeing the player.
- Spawning enemies is fine, just don’t make it apparent to the player that you are just tossing bodies from impossible places.
- Never do something that is impossible for the player – for example, shooting 600 rounds without reloading.
And on and on. The section sure was exciting, but in the desire to make a epic final battle the developers instead made a monument to crappy game design, and honored a tradition that really needs to die. Medal of Honor Heroes 2 is only a few hours long, but gets artificially doubled because of lousy checkpoints and loads of ‘die and retry’ scenarios. And it doesn’t stand out – loads of games do it, so when a refreshing game gives you actual challenges you are still blown away. Unfortunately that doesn’t happen much … especially with shooters.
December 10th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
I played this game too. I zipped through all of the levels on normal difficulty but for some reason I spent twice as long on the last level as I did on all other levels combined. I completely agree with you, especially the second to last paragraph 😉
December 11th, 2007 at 10:48 am
I rented it on Wii. I got to mission 3 and couldn’t go on. iT’s just a generic game. Run of the mill. Not very creative. etc. AI is retarded.
I liked the ARcade (lightgun) mode better actually. The game is linear so you don’t lose much by having the game move you through the environment. IT frees you up to use the wiimote how it’s used best and that’s to just point and shoot.
Of course, being an EA game, the mode is more like an afterthought and there’s not much more too it that shoot stream of bad guys. It’s not at all creative either where you can easily see that it could have been. You also with for some simultaneous play whether it be co-op or competitive or both. I suppose you can’t expect too much from what is sort of a bonus.
MP on the Wii actually is decent. I got into match in a minute or two. I find it more fun than the sp campaign because of the human AI.
December 11th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
I have it on wii. Haven’t beaten it though. It’s a bit dull
December 12th, 2007 at 9:34 am
Freakhead –
NOT FOR KIDS
But Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles and Link’s Crossbow Training both use the Wii shooting to it’s best ability. I don’t recommend the WiiZapper yet. Or at least, I don’t like it yet. But Link’s game is cool if you like this sort of thing.
December 12th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
WEll I got the Zapper already. I like it but I realize it’s more a novelty than anything. For me it makes the games more fun. ….LIke wearing a party hat at a party. 😉
Link’s is pretty creative for a target shooting game. I don’t really like the feel of the aiming tho. It felt laggy the whole way through. I’ll have to go back and play with the sensitivitiy or something. I’m not sure what it is. s
The Zapper package is only $20, but I could see people saying it’s over priced by $5.
I got Ghost Squad in the mail today. Thumbs up so far. I like it. Nice arcade port. Smooth aiming. Creative. It does look a bit old since it’s a 2k4 arcade game, but it’s polished. The kind of game I envisioned for the Wii.
How is RE:UC? I have to grab that one too.
I guess I’m sort of a sucker for these games so maybe I’m biased when I say these are the types that developers should make for the Wii, but they are. Arcadey games. GAmes I can play for 15-30 minutes. PLay with others. Take turns easy enough too if you keep them short. GAmes that are polished. They are sort of casual and yet hardcore too. Arcade.
December 13th, 2007 at 7:57 am
Die and retry games can’t even be fixed by having a healthy save game system. If they’re made poorly like you mention in your article, it is too easy for a gamer to get to a point where it is impossible to succeed and then save the game, not yet knowing the situation is unwinnable…
December 14th, 2007 at 11:36 am
Same thing happens in ‘Das Flakturn’. Forget the enemies, run like hell. If you fight, they’ll either shoot you or you’ll run out of time. If you run, you have a *slightly* better chance of living.