magerette
Hedgewitch
- Joined
- October 18, 2006
- Messages
- 7,834
NextGen has an article up examining a common convention in game structure that has managed to work its way into the hallowed halls of gaming tradition on all platforms and in many genres. I'm talking about the ubiquitous boss battle:
More information....everyone must have at least one nemesis that they’ve never conquered, one boss that turned them away from a game that they were otherwise savoring, and turned them away for good. Careless boss design can be ruinous. Rote boss design can be a significant mood killer. And good boss design won’t necessarily count for much, in the grand scheme of an adventure. No one seems to consider the 'future’ of boss fights. When was the last time you were recommended a game on the strength of its bosses? They’re the elephant in the room, albeit one that can – and often does – gore you with its tusks. Their persistence is reptilian, and cold-blooded in manner. No one has ever said that boss gauntlets are a great idea, and yet you’ll find one in a game as self-consciously accessible as Devil May Cry 4, where it feels like a habitual, reflex inclusion...[yet]...whenever a game abandons traditional boss fights, the absence isn’t lamented. Developers seem to reach for them as automatically as cinemagoers reach for popcorn. Bosses cheat. They lie. They repeat soundbites over and over, and sometimes come prefaced by an unskippable speech that, swiftly, makes layers testily jab at the buttons, even though they know they can’t break the patter. They conceal multiple energy bars or, worse, they only reveal their 'true’ form once you’ve expended all of your resources defeating their 'pretend’ form. Talk about entrapment.
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- Joined
- Oct 18, 2006
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- 7,834