Weekend slowdown: real-life “Tomb Raider” gameplay

Since it’s a reasonably slow news day, allow us to try something different. Please take the time to observe the slightly-dated humorous video above by YouTube user Kater17. Yeah, it’s in the spirit of the upcoming Tomb Raider: Anniversary. Anyway, funny(?) as it is, it does highlight several things that developers have to often think about, and gamers have to wrestle with when it comes to videogames.

• That casual gamers, a crowd that ranges from Zuma playing moms to ex-hardcore-now-a-parent gamer, are often easily annoyed with an unwieldy “cinematic” camera or an annoying control system. On the other hand, there’s a separate crowd that digs all this cinematic stuff.
• Sometimes it’s not the “cute” that draws folks to cutesy games, it’s the immediate fun factor. If you’re enjoying yourself within the first 5 minutes of playing a game, you’re probably going to prefer that game over others. Of course, making things a bit too simple and light on story will piss some other folks off.
• Unless you’re really really interested, or something decent is happening on screen, people often skip the long intro cinematics. Yeah, yeah, some folks like the cinematics, it’s just that… *editor presses X to skip cinematics discussion*

Anyhow, all of this is just probably us looking too deeply into a funny vid posted by someone on YouTube.

Well, now that you’ve seen Kater17’s problem with videogames, what about you folks? What gameplay “conventions” annoy you to no end? Reiterated battle systems? Weapon sets containing some useless weapons? Unfair advantages in multiplayer? The persistent existence of crates you have to smash? Glowy coins/rings/gems you always have to collect? Load times? Comment away folks.

Since it’s a reasonably slow news day, allow us to try something different. Please take the time to observe the slightly-dated humorous video above by YouTube user Kater17. Yeah, it’s in the spirit of the upcoming Tomb Raider: Anniversary. Anyway, funny(?) as it is, it does highlight several things that developers have to often think about, and gamers have to wrestle with when it comes to videogames.

• That casual gamers, a crowd that ranges from Zuma playing moms to ex-hardcore-now-a-parent gamer, are often easily annoyed with an unwieldy “cinematic” camera or an annoying control system. On the other hand, there’s a separate crowd that digs all this cinematic stuff.
• Sometimes it’s not the “cute” that draws folks to cutesy games, it’s the immediate fun factor. If you’re enjoying yourself within the first 5 minutes of playing a game, you’re probably going to prefer that game over others. Of course, making things a bit too simple and light on story will piss some other folks off.
• Unless you’re really really interested, or something decent is happening on screen, people often skip the long intro cinematics. Yeah, yeah, some folks like the cinematics, it’s just that… *editor presses X to skip cinematics discussion*

Anyhow, all of this is just probably us looking too deeply into a funny vid posted by someone on YouTube.

Well, now that you’ve seen Kater17’s problem with videogames, what about you folks? What gameplay “conventions” annoy you to no end? Reiterated battle systems? Weapon sets containing some useless weapons? Unfair advantages in multiplayer? The persistent existence of crates you have to smash? Glowy coins/rings/gems you always have to collect? Load times? Comment away folks.