Infantilizing Gamers
December 7th, 2007Level Up points to what it essentially refers to as a hit-whoring hit piece on Mario Galaxy. It’s undeniable that Tim Rogers’s review has more bile than his complaints warrant. But at the same time, he hits on something that’s increasingly irritated me about new games.
Is it really necessary to remind me - every single time - that I got an [item X], or to describe how to use it (see Zelda, from Ocarina of Time to Phantom Hourglass)? Is it really essential to have a three-part cinematic sequence whose function is to inform me that I got a star, or a new high score (see Mario Galaxy… which, even worse, does the high score thing without actually using the score concept in the game itself)? I doubt it.
Nintendo is perhaps worse than other companies at this, but not appreciably so. All games seem to be extending their training sequences out into the game as a whole. They confuse help, which should be available when requested, with coddling, which shouldn’t be available in titles targeted at the over-six set. I’d like to see this made into at a minimum some sort of toggleable option.
Posted in Geoff, Industry, Nintendo |
December 7th, 2007 at 7:25 pm
I’ve had this complaint for years, and yes, I do think Nintendo is significantly worse. Public Enemy Number One: Ocarina of Time.
December 7th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
Of course when companies DON’t give tutorials, people complain that it makes the games too hard to play, ala mass effect.
December 7th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
Dave, if you re-read the post you’ll see my complaint isn’t with the tutorial - it’s with the lesson continuing *past* the tutorial. Games should feel free to orient me… But I don’t need to get the same mandatory instructions repeatedly.
December 7th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
Wow, Geoff. You said in one paragraph what it took Tim ten million words to say.
December 7th, 2007 at 10:03 pm
I thought this was one thing BioShock did REALLY well. It keeps itself quiet, but if it sees you wandering aimlessly it helps you out. And you can turn it all off if you want to, or ask for more coddling if you’re confused.
December 8th, 2007 at 2:01 am
Geoff,
Thanks for the mention. However, the language I used to describe Tim Rogers’ Super Mario Galaxy review–”controversial,” “hit-whoring” and “attention-craving”–was taken directly from Rogers’ own piece, wherein he tried to anticipate the criticism it received. In other words, I was just having a bit of fun, which is what I often do with High Score, rather than taking a shot at Rogers.
And while Rogers’ review was indeed long and dense (hmm, is that a pot and kettle I see, chatting?), I linked to it because I thought he had some interesting things to say. As do you.
December 8th, 2007 at 2:46 am
Yea, this is one of the reasons AAA Nintendo games seem generally overhyped, and overrated.
THat said, you might not want to discuss mister Rogers’s articles too anally…
exhibit 1:
http://www.(next-gen).biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7509&Itemid=2&limit=1&limitstart=1
(remove the parenthesis)
exhibit 2:
http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/five-worst-gaming-2.php
exhibit 3:
http://www.(next-gen).biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8254&Itemid=2 (too many training games)…(remove the parenthesis)
miscellaneous vomit:
http://www.actionbutton.net/
December 8th, 2007 at 2:48 am
So as you can see, whenever I put in a NExt gen link, the comments never show up, and i resort to the above measure.
why.
December 8th, 2007 at 2:49 am
“laesperanzapaz Says: Your comment is awaiting moderation. ”
um, what?
December 8th, 2007 at 5:02 am
I’m going to play devil’s advocate here for a minute, despite agreeing with a lot of what you’re saying here:
1) Many of the sequences you reference are somewhat vital to the “presentation” of the game. Sure, in Mario Galaxy we could strip out the 5-10 second sequence that shows you getting the star and perhaps finding your way back to the hub… we could probably just strip out the whole hub altogether and just give you a list of places to go to… Once you hit the star, it could just immediately bring up a list of possible stars to go for. Maybe it’d be more efficient, but I think the game might lose some of it’s “charm” that way. These sequences also lend consistency to the game, which is probably an overall design mantra for videogames (ie, the gamer expects things to work a certain way, and so it should always work that way).
2) I wouldn’t mind having the option to “skip” the redundant sequences, such as opening a treasure chest in Zelda (and the fact that multi-rupees seem to reset their “info” text in Zelda: TP every time you restart the game seems like a bug to me that should’ve been fixed), but I also think that these games may be “hiding” actual load time behind these sequences, similar to the empty hallways in the Metroid Prime series (which, apparently, are not even long enough in many cases).
3) You mention that you don’t like the Zelda’s describing how to use new items? If you mean the whole “set it to one of your buttons”, then sure.. but it also gives you information on what the item does and what its function is. Perhaps there are also cases where an item doesn’t go into your “secondary” weapons menu, in which case, you could say it’s helpful that it reminds you when certain weapons need to be equipped first.
4) I think this has been touched on before, but perhaps Nintendo is just keeping in mind that some of their games may be “passed around” by people. I think this is particularly true of Mario Galaxy, where the 2-player mode sort of just adds a “helper”, while 1 person plays the more “traditional” role of Mario. I expect some people would switch their roles around quite a bit, and maybe even new people will come in and need to see some help on how something works. As a side note, I originally thought it was dumb that the penguins always told you how to swim… but then I realized that people may not approach the levels in the same order, so that they actually need to be on all of the swimming levels to inform people of how it works. Considering their information is optional as well, it doesn’t seem to be that big of a deal to me.
December 8th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
N’Gai -
Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that you were referring to the post as such because you were taking a potshot at him. As I was hoping to indicate in the post, I actually think he makes some good points (although I’m still not clear on why these relatively minor complaints make him hate the game so much).
December 8th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
I didn’t hate the game, though! I was actually very far from hating it. Sometimes, wanting to like something is almost as good as actually liking it. And almost all the time, wanting to like something is better than actually hating it.
December 8th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
Tim,
I think you’ll agree it’s difficult to square this assertion with the one in your article that
“… I don’t like it. I mean, I really, really, really, really don’t like it. It just about makes me nauseous how little I like it.”
In any case, however, I agree with your major conclusions. But I’d suggest tempering them with some perspective.
- I thought Super Mario Galaxy was a lot of fun. I did not think it was the Second Coming of Christ. I felt the same way about Mario 3 and Mario 64.
- Super Mario Galaxy being a lot of fun is a big deal even if it’s not the Second Coming, because it’s a fun game on a console that doesn’t have nearly as many fun games as its sales might lead one to believe.
- Being over-coddled is a real problem and has been for some time, since at least the early N64 days, and Nintendo is the worst offender. I got really tired of seeing the unskippable description of what the Compass does in Ocarina of Time, and I got really tired of hearing Navi’s “Hey!” every time a puzzle was presented because Nintendo wanted to tell me how to solve it rather than let me figure it out.
As for your ability to have fun, Tim, over time I’ve tried to train myself not to get over-hyped on games, because I’m inevitably disappointed when I do. I think it’s this sort of unreasonable expectation that troubles you about Mario Galaxy.
Halo 2 was one such casualty for me. It did everything it was supposed to — it offered a number of refinements on the concepts presented in the first game, and implemented extensive Xbox Live support in a way that I wish more games would rip off, and it did all this while retaining a large, thriving community. And yet I was disappointed. I’m not really sure what more I expected the disc to do.
The sooner you’re able to train yourself out of this expectation the happier you’ll be.
December 8th, 2007 at 5:20 pm
Could someone address my concerns above?
December 8th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
IMO, worse than coddling, is not being able to get the help/tips when you need them, or only getting them once and never again. I REALLY like the “toggle on” tips idea. Someone please implement that.
And, wow, nice to see some of the “big boys” jaunting about on this super sweet site. I’m a big fan N’Gai, keep up the good work.
December 9th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
laesperanzapaz - can you clarify what your concerns are? I read the links but as I read them, they’re mostly critiques of Tim’s writing.
December 9th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
No, I don’t care about Tim, that was just an FYI.
See my technical difficulties at post 8 or 9. Thanks.