I'll admit, I don't play many games anymore; I prefer to watch people gaming instead. One thing I have noticed is the distinct lack of thinking needed in quite a few games due to the prevalence of 'Detect' mode.
I have recently watched a few of the newer Batman games and from what I saw, the moment you needed to go somewhere, find something or flick a switch, you fire up Detect mode and voila, the way to progress in the game is shown to you. The same was true for Tomb Raider, which if I'm honest seemed a particularly poor game (but that's another topic of discussion). Call me old school but the point of Tomb Raider was for it to be an action / puzzler game. Sometimes you'd enter a location and maybe spend 10 minutes working out what the hell to do, but that was the beauty. The game lasted a long time because you had to actually THINK about what you needed to do.
Now I'm not tarring every game with the same brush but surely the excitement of games like Tomb Raider was the fact you had to find things out yourself, not just click Detect mode and then have everything laid out on a platter. Assassin's Creed seems to have started this trend but that is a game that was designed with a 'Detect' function in mind which is why is appears to work quite well. In Tomb Raider though? I just thought to myself, "What a joke".
It's as if games are designed to be completed as quickly as possible with minimal effort or thinking required and I think that's quite sad really.
Why think when you can press 'Detect'?
posted on 17/7/15
I think the first thing though is Tomb Raider moved away from being an action puzzler, the new iteration is certainly a mixture of stealth action with some exploration and the puzzles are no longer the main attraction, and this also fits with the current market which dont want puzzles. So its nothing to do with not thinking/completing as quickly as possible, they are just designed towards different areas. But dont confuse difficulty with the need to think, i am currently playing TLOU on grounded and the need to "think" as you put it is, but my needing to think in other ways is much higher than saying a puzzle game. I can see your frustration but you are confusing the new reboots with what they used to be which they arent, Tomb Raider as a story driven action game is excellent, and that is what it should be viewed as and not as a sequel to the original.
The same with Batman, it isnt a detective game, you are not supposed to "think" about it, its an action game that is supposed to portray the idea that you are Batman, and part of his job in film or comics is using his gadgets to solve certain crimes.
You cannot have a fall blown investigation in Batman, and that is good design, but like i said Batman isnt about solving these mysteries its purely a design method to show you are Batman and to use the gadgets. The same as Tomb Raider, the reboot was never marketed as an action puzzler.
You want detective like games look at telltale, Her Story, Broken Sword or one of the excellent Sherlock games.
In all honesty it doesnt seem there are any problems with games or the design but what you are expecting from game, and maybe you are just buying the wrong games.
posted on 17/7/15
I think you miss my point. I'm not looking for Broken Sword; if I was I would buy Broken Sword....
Rather than being told to go to a specific building next, or even a room in a building, to look for something, you press Detect and you know EXACTLY where to go and which switch to flick (for example). It's almost like watching a film with a tiny amount of gamer interaction. Exploration of an area doesn't exist (in some cases) because you don't explore the area, you're told exactly where to go and what to do there. It sometimes makes me wonder why developers spend so long on graphics when most people will just sprint through an area.
You say that the current market wants different things now, this is fine. If the market demands something different you supply it. I just get the feeling that some of this market is borderline 'mindless' gaming. To cite an example, in Tomb Raider the cliffs you were able to climb all had exactly the same texture and after climbing one, it was blindingly obvious that this texture was climbable. So why on earth did the fact you could climb these cliffs need to be highlighted when you pressed detect? To me (and this is just my opinion) it was like you were insulting the gamer's intelligence by (almost) implying that the gamer will have forgotten that a texture was climbable the next time they encountered it, therefore it must be highlighted when detect is pressed. Surely people are not so forgetful...?
Btw, you mention TLOU and this is a game that I really enjoyed because you weren't just spoon fed everything, you had to play the game, engage with it and explore an area.
It's just a personal opinion (gripe) of mine that some games are needlessly dumbed down to the extent that they almost play themselves, that's all.
posted on 17/7/15
Just play them without using detect mode.
posted on 18/7/15
If you want to think stop playing console games and switch over to PC.
posted on 20/7/15
You prefer to watch people play games, rather than either watching a film or playing the game yourself?