by Kenneth Chen | Oct 5, 2016 | Kenneth on Games
When Shadow of Mordor came out two years ago, I thought its Nemesis System was going to be revolutionary. I thought all the major studios would be tripping over themselves trying to put their own spin on it. I thought there would be Nemeses in MOBAs and MMOs and FPSes and all sorts of games. I thought we were going to enter a new age of emergent narrative in pop culture. I thought wrong. Looking back at the way RPGs and stories have evolved over these past two years, why hasn’t there been anything in the AAA space following Shadow of Mordor’s footsteps?
WARNING: Slight ending spoilers.
by Kenneth Chen | Sep 27, 2016 | Kenneth on Games
Vainglory advertises itself as “the MOBA perfected for touch,” and to an extent, it’s true. Any MOBA player will immediately find themselves at home with the familiar minions-to-turret lane structure, a recall to shop button, and a jungle with a boss monster. Moving the genre to mobile actually seems to change very little about it, but is this truly the way to “perfect” a MOBA for a new medium? How can a new control scheme affect design?
by Kenneth Chen | Sep 21, 2016 | Kenneth on Games
Every few months, a new “learn to code” game hits the frontpage of Reddit. This time around, it’s CodinGame, which advertises itself as a system that’s not just for beginners, but also for more experienced programmers who can learn from each other. There are plenty of integrated social networks embedded in the game itself, such as rating systems for every coding puzzle. One of the lowest rated puzzles is called “Temperatures,” and I got stuck on this one for days. But what makes this puzzle bad, not from a programming perspective, but from a game design perspective?
by Kenneth Chen | Sep 6, 2016 | Kenneth on Games
Considering that the latest Deus Ex is about being divided, people have reacted in a strangely harmonious manner. Everyone says that the level design is fun, the story is disappointing, the art direction looks great, and the microtransactions are horrible. But one aspect that the reviewers seem to overlook is Breach, an arcade-style minigame that shipped along with the base title. Breach offers a Deus Ex experience in controlled bursts rather than the sprawling campaigns we’ve come to expect, and this departure represents a fascinating new design direction, although perhaps not a good one.
WARNING: Spoilers for certain events in Mankind Divided.
by Kenneth Chen | Aug 28, 2016 | Kenneth on Games
The director of Final Fantasy XV has said in an interview that the first half of the game is open-world, while the second half is linear. At this point, anything they could possibly say that shows that the game is getting closer to release is good news. But Square Enix is practically the pioneer of the linear-start-open-end style, and they’ve stuck to it from Chrono Trigger to Final Fantasy XIII. What are they hoping to achieve by flipping the conventional JRPG structure on its head?
by Kenneth Chen | Aug 12, 2016 | Kenneth on Games
A while ago, I said that “it’s rare to see a game as divisive as Pokemon Go.” Apparently, I was wrong, because here comes No Man’s Sky and its angry lynchmob. This game has been hyped for years, and in a tragically predictable turn of events, the hype has backfired. One of the main points of contention is the lack of real-time persistent multiplayer, which is something that players have been expecting and the developers have been promising. But does real-time persistent multiplayer truly belong in the No Man’s Sky vision?
