Thomas Lawrence says:

The thing about videogames is that this year’s titles aren’t going to be a reaction to last year’s, because dev cycles are usually at least eighteen months.

January 5th, 2009 at 8:56 pm

Paul S says:

If you’re making an MMO, make sure it’s a good game. No, seriously. I’m sure most developers aren’t interested in quality, and the publishers don’t seem to care. You can’t just toss it off in a year or two and ship with a barely functioning engine and programming issues from here to the Galapagos Islands. You only make the big money with MMOs when you produce quality. It is the only genre where you just can’t get away with being crap any more. Why won’t the big houses learn this?

Oh, and stop making me sign up to websites / clubs / GFWL. I don’t wanna. Same goes for my 360 pad. I’ll use it when I say, not you.

All said, congrats. I played some cracking games in 2008.

January 5th, 2009 at 9:00 pm

LewieP says:

Less/much shorter load times, I am bored of them now.

I would like to see what Subversion actually is, and I would like it to be as good as I expect it to, and I would like some mainstream media to actually give it some coverage.

I’d like to see something on Splinter Cell: Conviction, and for it to be the update that the series deserves.

I’d like Fez to come out.

I’d like to pretend that Deus Ex 3 doesn’t exist.

January 5th, 2009 at 9:05 pm

rocketman71 says:

I’d like to see DRM disappear from the face of the Earth.

Also, SecuROM bankrupt, and whoever thought that fucking paying customers uselessly is OK out of the industry and serving burgers for all his life.

Hey, don’t look at me like that. It’s the Christmas spirit.

January 5th, 2009 at 9:09 pm

The Poisoned Sponge says:

For 2009 I’d really really love a procedural and (perhaps more importantly) involving story. I don’t care what genre it’s in, but I’d bloody love it no matter where it comes from. Imagine the replayability!

January 5th, 2009 at 9:11 pm

The Poisoned Sponge says:

Oh, and I’d also love for a few more massive Indie hits to shake up the industry a bit more. There must be some out there!

January 5th, 2009 at 9:12 pm

Thants says:

Huh, is Alan Wake still a thing? I remember being excited about that way back when.

January 5th, 2009 at 9:19 pm

JonFitt says:

I’d like to see developers factoring in support and updates to big games that goes beyond “Let’s sell this crap we cut or didn’t finish as DLC in 6 months time”
I mourn the loss of expansion packs, surely after you’ve spent so much time developing a game like Mass Effect you can do more with it?
I hold out hope that Fallout3’s expansions are more than 5 minute diversions.

January 5th, 2009 at 9:23 pm

Junior says:

I look forward to less plot and scripting in games. Let me and the engine bash out something approximating a plot, or anything else I feel like doing in the world I’ve bought.

I don’t need guiding by the hand, I can explore on my own, and I’ll get into my own damn trouble.

January 5th, 2009 at 9:24 pm

Plopsworth says:

I’d say that Far Cry 2’s dedicated (yet strangely selective in some circumstances) stance to diegeticness should be recognised.
How about the year of co-op?
No longer is co-op implementation seen as reason enough to play a crap game.

January 5th, 2009 at 9:27 pm

kobzon says:

I want Chris Onstad of Achewood fame to finally make a text adventure game.

January 5th, 2009 at 9:28 pm

Dolphan says:

In 2009, I want more hints along the lines of the one Football Manager 2009 just gave me – “A player with a high corners attribute would be a good choice to take your corners”. And a new comments-devourer to replace DRM.

January 5th, 2009 at 9:31 pm

matte_k says:

More games that buld upon some of the prototype innovative ideas we’ve seen in the last few years. From big buck games like Spore to two-man teams like World of Goo, take those ideas and apply them to something new, and in context. I remember years back hearing about Republic-The Revolution and Stalker and thinking “how the hell will they pull that off?” and when the games finally arrived, they were about 70% right but broken in so many ways that a devoted community was left to put it right (Are those KoToR 2 guys still working on the mod? That’s some dedication…and hopefully worth it).

Let’s see developers and publishers getting things 95-100% right- if you can do that, you will be rewarded by purchases and praise. Isn’t that worth waiting a bit longer for release?

January 5th, 2009 at 9:35 pm

Gap Gen says:

The FPS hasn’t really revolutionarily changed for quite a while now. It’s more exciting than the adventure game, though, so that goes a long way to prolonging its survival. Another idea I heard was that adventure games were popular in early computing because you needed to be a puzzle-solving master just to fire up games on the PC in the first place.

That said, the FPS has been changing slowly, or at least doing new things. Films have settled into a groove, but are still popular – the comparison between Pixar and TF2 isn’t unwarranted.

As for short games, games are becoming shorter anyway. Call of Duty 4 isn’t as long as most games before it, and most of Spore can be completed in an afternoon. The biggest challenge to developers in this respect is making their games accessible to people who haven’t spent years honing their skills – I completed Portal in a few hours, but my dad struggled when he was forced to attempt it, and many people just don’t want to spend hours getting into something, unlike the feature film which typically only lasts 2 hours or so. Then again, companies are already doing this sort of thing, with testing being more rigorous in the bigger studios. But then this, and better voice acting, can be costly.

January 5th, 2009 at 9:35 pm

Steve says:

Planescape 2?
Outcast 2
Kings Bounty for reasonable money.
Well, one out of three at least?

January 5th, 2009 at 9:42 pm

Nitre says:

More new IPs from companies that have been sitting in their sequels for far too long.

More games like World Of Goo; indie, charming, thought provoking, funny and well made.

More effort by developers (more likely publishers) to make games polished and not rush them out with game-breaking bugs, or just plain terrible bits which really need more work.

More effort put into storylines. I don’t want the same crap we’ve had 5 million times before. (You are the super amazing ultra person who has come to save the world which has been taken over by an alien species/evil people! Now go!) I want plot twists, strong characters that i actually care about, so that when you kill them off i don’t just think ‘Ah damn, need to find me another person to shoot shit’ or ‘thank god for that, their voice pissed me off to no end!’

Less focus on improving graphics and more attempts to do things that haven’t been done before. Indie developers are doing good stuff here, but big developers need to start doing so as well. Take some risks and don’t stick to your stagnant, money making series.

Some of these things are probably impossible, but one can dream.

January 5th, 2009 at 9:46 pm

Ziv says:

I would like developers to think we mean something.
This year had many, many games that were supposed to be awesome but sucked because they weren’t finished. for example: GTA IV which most people couldn’t run, far cry 2 which had SO MANY issues I heard stalker had issues too but I didn’t play it. and again like what that has been said before we need originality.

think the only “big player” game that was any good this year wa left 4 dead. set aside the name itself the game was polished, original, expendable (there’s an expension pack on the way w/ more maps), it was affordable and easy to get (steam/direct2drive which I think are the future).

so, summing it all up, developers! go play left 4 dead and understand what a good game is!

P.S. another great example of a good game that I forgot to mention is king’s bounty, which I haven’t finished yet but it’s a really good game.

January 5th, 2009 at 9:52 pm

dhex says:

my real big hope is that age of decadence kicks ass and doesn’t suck.

and that project origin is good.

January 5th, 2009 at 9:57 pm

Dave says:

I don’t have that opinion of FPS’s. Maybe because I play a limited set of them, and most of those are Valve… But to me HL2, L4D, TF2, Crysis, and Bioshock are all as different as they could reasonably be within the same genres.

That said, I want more of the kind of experience Thief 1 delivered, and the first couple of Rainbow Six games. (Vegas is way too far in the action vein for me. Rogue Spear was perfect… just needs a graphical update.)

The FPS I’m most looking forward to is the Black Mesa mod.

January 5th, 2009 at 10:03 pm

Pags says:

(Honest to goodness I read your entire post BooleanBob, but I just thought I’d single this part out and ‘rap a little on it’)

Whereas Bioware’s 3D games force upon you a perspective – the over-the-shoulder third person – that demands you take the world at face value, and all the clumsy artifice of its unerringly identical props and furniture alongside.

See, now I know some people find it very easy to dislike GTAIV, but I think this is definitely where Rockstar have shown it is entirely possible to have an actual 3D world where things rarely feel cut-and-paste; take a walk round the city (if you can run the game that is) and take note of how you’ll almost never see the same shopfront twice, or how they include a million different unique details that you never pick up on because… well, because you never see them again. An example: I went into the office of that warehouse full of soda you shoot up for Manny whilst on one of my jaunts around Bohan; on the desk was a desk lamp, modelled and textured and unassumingly tucked away. I must’ve been there five full minutes, mind blown, thinking that someone actually had to make that lamp and put it in the game knowing that no-one would think twice about it being there.

Of course, that game had a budget of bazillions, spent a huge amount of time in development and had a ridiculous amount of staff, but the fact stands: it is possible.

January 5th, 2009 at 10:13 pm

qrter says:

Forgot one – make more PC games moddable.

That part of gaming seems to be disappearing and it would be a real shame.

January 5th, 2009 at 10:22 pm

Tei says:

I love RPS.

January 5th, 2009 at 10:30 pm

Feet says:

I’d like…

- More mad
- More meaningful choices
- Less faux choices
- Less MMOs
- Less crappy or late or both ports
- Less DRM bs
- More rewarding paying customers
- More turned-based games
- Less graphics
- More gameplays
- More games with writing
- Less games with stupidness
-

That’ll do.

January 5th, 2009 at 10:32 pm

Gorgeras says:

Love will beat WoW. It’s financial, artistic and cultural impact shall utterly destroy the Everquest clone, prompting Jeff Kaplan to be fired for crimes against player-made content and goals.

Considering I don’t even know much about the gameplay of Love, I must really be wanting WoW to get a kick in the nuts. Mythic failed because they lied to PvPers, end of.

Second, Rockstar will either fix GTA IV and go on to become a great PC developer again, or the company will die and the Housers will be put on trial for some kind of corporate fraud.

The mask will also be pulled of John Riccitiello, revealing him to secretly be Jack Thompson in disguise. Giving how much effort he has been consistently putting in to destroy gaming, why would this be a suprise?

January 5th, 2009 at 10:41 pm

Alaric says:

I’d like StarCraft.

January 5th, 2009 at 10:45 pm

JonFitt says:

I appreciate the sentiment behind the “less graphics” comments, but I’m not so sure that is really desirable. If Portal 2 was released looking like Quake 2, but everything else intact, it would have still get the indie gamer’s attention, but would receive bad reviews and sell badly. People like the pretty.

But I don’t think you need a new engine for every game, and the industry is well aware of this now. Compare the use of Unreal 3 compared to previous generations where everyone had their own engine.

However, I think we’ll see a continued movement towards art over photo-realism. Think TF2, and Mirrors Edge, as opposed to Crysis.

January 5th, 2009 at 10:51 pm

blindpsychic says:

Please please please please please let Borderlands be great. Like, really really really great.

Also yes, make these games more moddable. Dawn of War 2’s absence of mod support is a terrible blow considering how much mods gave life to DOW1.

The thing with mods now, as someone who was around in the golden age with Quake 2 and Half Life 1, is that everything cycles through so fast, and it seems like its impossible for mods to even gain a solid fanbase. I mean, there’s something sort of sad and futile about it sometimes. Red Orchestra is a good case, it has 3 highly polished mods out, that basically cover every western theater of WWII. Only, they were finished about 3 years too late, and no one plays them.

Mods today seem to be made today more from the perspective of portfolio work for people who want to get into the industry, even if no one plays the damn things.

Is it still counterstrikes fault? WoW? They seem to absorb these massive fanbases and no one ever seems to move out of them. CS’s fanbase even back in the day was massive, but there seemed to have been plenty of love to go around.

Is it the high turnover time thats really killing us?

I dunno, its just really sad. Maybe its just my perspective now, as someone who’s not really part of the scene anymore. It just gets depressing when you have these derelict websites and forums for mods that are in production and except for a post or two, the rest of the topics are years old.

Anyway, I’m rambling. I hope modding can make a comeback. RPS guys, do your part on that front. I know atleast two HL2 mods are expecting updates this year, PVK and Dystopia are both due. You guys didn’t mention the new release of Sven Coop either. It may not be a huge thing, but having at least a mod-round up feature would be awesome.

January 5th, 2009 at 11:00 pm

Vandelay says:

I’d like a game that combines the AI director of Left 4 Dead with the adaptable story of Far Cry 2 with the open world of Fallout 3 coupled with the extraordinary polish of GTAIV (in terms of the world not the stability) and the epic feel of Mass Effect. Surely not too much to ask.

Was 2007 really that big? I can only remember the Orange Box now.

I feel that 2008 has been the best year for games in a long time. Although some may not have met all expectation, the vast majority of games were certainly enjoyable. I can’t remember the last time when I could have bought about 6 new games all at one time.

January 5th, 2009 at 11:00 pm

Flint says:

I agree on the FPS issue. FPS games have long been one of my very favourite genres and it’s pretty annoying to see a once lovely genre now being a bunch of copycats copycatting eachother.

I want to see variety in FPS games. Bring back new and different worlds, new and different adventures, not just a bunch of games that are either macho scifi, gritty scifi, pseudo-realism (WW2 games that are still going on and alike) or gritty pseudo-realism. I’m not saying that FPS games should be colourful toony tralalala frolicking but what happened to your game looking different to its competition? I’d even accept some corny “super space marine saves the universe” game with more open arms if it wasn’t stupidly brown/black/darker shade of black in gray and black tunnels and “woah this is HARDCORE GRITTTYYYY” bilge.

And where the hell are all the different settings? Undying’s 1920’s look, Hexen’s fantasy world, Half-Life’s science complex that actually felt like a living place and not a labyrinth hell with no lights or any logical design in the first place? Sci-fi thematics are such a gigantic thing where you could spill your imagination into countless billion different worlds but somehow we’re stuck on USS OhBugger who went to play with some organic bodysplitting horrors and whose crew now serves as the new wallpaper of the ship. There’s a few jungle settings here and there nowadays to offer some change but even those are all the same damn jungle.

Actually I’m just kinda tired of 90% of games looking completely identical to eachother in general and thus my largest demand in general for 2009 would be the diversification of games again, visually and in setting. Take some risks, create some new plots or gameplay elements, make the scene look a bit less stale. And I want the bigger studios to do this with their flagship games, not just this indie game faffle that everyone else seems completely fappy over but I can’t find a single thing that doesn’t feel ridiculously hyped up just because it’s indie.

Also agreed on whoever said that we need less open end sandbox gaming. I want to engage in fantastic plots and large personal experience moments again, neither of which the sandbox fad offers. Related to this, more story – more engaging stories with memorable characters. Even if it means more cutscenes, which I’ve always liked anyway. The whole “you’re in full control all the time” thing tends to bugger up dramatic effect quite a lot.

And HL2 Ep3 thx.

God how one rambles when he’s in lack of something to do.

January 5th, 2009 at 11:03 pm

ohnoabear says:

First off, nice Death Cab reference, John.

More than the first person shooter, I want some innovation with the RTS. Of the mainstream PC genres, it’s probably the most uniquely PC-specific, and it’s one that hasn’t seen a whole lot of new ground broken, or even frequent releases. The only RTSs I can think of that came out last year were Multiwinia, which didn’t leave much of an impression on me, and Red Alert 3, which was polished and fun but not really anything original. The good news is that Dawn of War 2 and Empire: Total War (and possibly Starcraft 2) are coming out next year, and might breathe new life into the genre.

I’d also like to see better writing in games, and stories that aren’t complete throwaways. This seems to be getting better at a lot of studios, although 2008 did give us Fallout 3, which is the most poorly-written RPG I have played in a long time.

Going along with that, I’d like to see more games that take advantage of their interactivity to play around with the concept of narrative. The best games I’ve played this year were ones where stories and drama flowed naturally from the gameplay, like in Left 4 Dead, when I ignored my dying friends to make a last-ditch run for the boat on Death Toll, only to attract the attention of hundreds of zombies, who surrounded me and tore me to pieces 10 feet away from safety. I’d like to see more in the area of procedural narrative, or simply taking advantage of the dynamic nature of games to create interesting stories. Err, like Left 4 Dead.

January 5th, 2009 at 11:07 pm

blindpsychic says:

Yeah, I agree flint. I think thats why Zeno Clash excites me, even if its not any good, its just so unique that you have to try it.

I mean, I hope soon, people will begin realizing that with all this computing power, maybe its time to I dunno, not make things look like they are? TF2 was a step in the right direction in that regard. More Bosch and Van Gough, less Bob Ross.

January 5th, 2009 at 11:14 pm

Citizen Parker says:

I just want the end of the morality slider and choices between “obviously good” and “obviously bad” choices.

So really, the same wish I’ve had since, oh, ever.

-Parker

January 5th, 2009 at 11:17 pm

Flint says:

I haven’t actually contradicted myself, I just managed to leave out crucial information while editing before posting :D.

I think Valve’s so far been pretty much the only one who’s managed to do the whole “fully in control all the time” thing right, particularly with HL1. They pretty much know how to design crucial plot events with the fact in mind that the player can go and fool around any way he wants while information is given, they know how to draw attention to the right things and, well, make the non-existent cutscenes seem like living moments you’re actually involved with and not just a guy yapping in front of you.

Either can work yeah, and there’s certainly a lot of games with boring “standing people yapping in DRAMATIC CLOSE UP” cutscenes, but to me the whole constant full control is much more jarring when it’s not executed perfectly than the other way.

FPS games have never really been known for grand stories (or cutscenes) anyway, I was more talking about the sandbox game trend as I mentioned my wish for more actual stories. Though I wouldn’t mind FPS games having more stories either.

January 5th, 2009 at 11:26 pm

BrokenSymmetry says:

In 2009 I want something I didn’t know I want.

January 5th, 2009 at 11:33 pm

Heliocentric says:

More free time… I already have about 5000 hours of games to get through. Especially more free time to play games co-op with my other half, so if you must demand I prophesies 2009?

More Co-Op games, in new genres. I want TES5 to have full free roaming Co-Op, a new spacerangers/kings bounty type game with mutual exploration and battle. Even an X(such as X3: Reunion) series game where you can drop into a persistent but private to you and your friends world, where you can manage a corporation and fight off alien scum, or just pay them off with rare ore.

I want free roaming, I want co-op, but also a sense of ownership and property. You can apply this to any genre be it a stalker co-op mod, where you can give commands to the ai and have them hold territory you decide, rather than the computer. But when they claim it, they don’t just rigidly stand like man turrets. They staff permitting take breaks, sit and play guitar, and if relaxing isn’t possible suffer nervous breakdowns.

Empire total war multi player campaigns look like good fodder for co-op, pick 2 Islamic sides and declare jihad on the heathens, each specialising in different areas. I’ll bring the siege weapons if you manage the elephants?

A company of heroes co-op campaign, with a small number of units for the pop cap, but a desperate need for careful execution. “Get mines on that BLOODY bridge! NOW CORPORAL!”.

Also Swat 5 to be announced to be in development, and Irrational(they are not 2K anything wash out your mouth) can forget all about that silly Bioshock nonsense. For new equipment I want access to a baton and one of those trucks with a water cannon for a more European flavour to my police brutality.

Hmm…. Name the game, add meaningful co-op, and the capacity to add things to the world that matter? I’ll buy it. I’m looking at you Love.

January 5th, 2009 at 11:34 pm

Pags says:

Oh yeah, to coincide with Matthew’s comment, I want 2009 to include more games from Flashbang.

January 5th, 2009 at 11:39 pm

Det. says:

ok, wait…
no…
ok, so…
A first person shooter and third person beat-them-up (read: dynasty warriors) hybrid, kinda like ikaruga but with perspectives instead.
kinda like battlefield 2, only your enemies are either blaster resistant or light-saber resistant.
/jumping aboard the force mating FPS with every god damn genre train

January 5th, 2009 at 11:45 pm

Y3k-Bug says:

Oh, and more on topic:

I am dying to see what Valve does with the AI director in their future games. I’ve become a big fan of the randomness they’ve come to instill in their 2 latest online games: Team Fortress 2 (critical hits) and Left 4 Dead.

Also, I’d like to know if Valve plans on instituting some form of the AI director into their single player games. That seems to be the next logical step for Valve to take, getting cohesive, randomized single player action that remains compelling throughout.

Can you tell that I’m a Valve fanboy yet?

January 5th, 2009 at 11:47 pm

Timofee says:

@ DSX Sadly I doubt 2009 will be the year of the FPS MMO, but I sincerely hope to be proven wrong. I’m surprised no one else seems to have mentioned MMO FPSs in the comments

Sadly I was too young / poverty stricken / on stupid dial up to try Planetside but I really feel FPS MMOs are something more companies (or just Valve, either is good) should be looking at.

I’d like to see two clearly defined routes explored, one with a realistic modern day feel and the other I would pitch as Worms meets TF2 in terms of the more relaxed feel along with truly insane weaponry.

I’m not sure whether it could work on an ongoing MMO scale, but you don’t even need to have the standard two factions, what about a players vs the world survival type game but on an epic scale?

Plus I think with FPS MMOs there is a real chance to do away with the ridiculous pursuit of ever better gear / stats. Lets just have a certain amount of points to spend on key talents right from the off which will augment your play style (e.g. heavy armour, speed, stealth, regenerating health, jetpack), numerous classes in the vein of TF2 (excl support ones – see next), one ’support skill’ think ammo resupply, medic ability, building, and then finally 60 or so weapons where you can choose 3 (heavy wep, side arm, melee – think tf2 again)

Give us a world to play in, map out loads of zones which can be taken and captured by player created clans, maybe throw a few much larger more powerful AI factions (which could act as King of the Hill bragging rights type things for the larger clans). Maybe also give each clan a ‘locked’ zone for them to call home.

Throw in a ‘mercenary’ feature for those billy-no-mates out there where it’ll group you up with a bunch of similiarly friend-challenged associates and set you a one off objective that you can knock off in 20 mins or so, such as harassing a zone of a particularly powerful player clan.

Sprinkle liberally with an assortment of vehicles, lighter versions which players could almost ’summon’ ala mounts in WoW, heavier ones or multiuser ones which can only be built at engineering type yards in the zones you capture

To add a more persistent element you could allow clans to earn resource type points from the zones they own to spend on upgrading defenses of those zones and employing AI to defend them.

Chuck in a basic diplomacy system to allow clans to forge alliances, preventing them from acidentally (or intentionally) harming each other. Obviously it would allow you to cancel alliances perhaops giving 24hrs notice before that clan becomes fair game again

January 5th, 2009 at 11:51 pm

RichP says:

I’d like to see less money spent on graphics

Or the rise of art styles other than photorealism. I still love well-done 2d art.

Elemental: War of Magic, Stardock’s next TBS, is doing everything I want in a game. Do a write up about it, RPS! The beta should be out later this year.

Looking forward to Demigod, Empire Total War, and Black Mesa.

January 5th, 2009 at 11:57 pm

Y3k-Bug says:

I think the bigger problem with other dev’s making a game like Portal is that fact that very few developers (if any) have Valve’s extremely polished playtesting apparatus.

January 6th, 2009 at 12:03 am

Y3k-Bug says:

Oh, and just to throw it out there:

What I’m about to say is probably heresy to most, but I kinda don’t care about stories in videogames. Give me gameplay that is cohesive, compelling, and quality. If you can’t get the story going, don’t sweat it. Just keep it out of the way.

A question to the audience: how many feel that Bioshock’s storyline got in the way of its gameplay after that bit with the golf club, which many agree is where the game tailed off?

January 6th, 2009 at 12:08 am

Cris Villa Ried says:

Yes, Monkey Island 5! Please!

January 6th, 2009 at 12:12 am

malkav11 says:

I’d like nothing to come out for about four months so that I can work on some of the stuff I already have. Thanks.

January 6th, 2009 at 12:21 am

Nifft says:

Maybe 2009 will be the year in which, for the first time, I will play only indies. Maybe I will also try to develop someting by myself… In my spare time. This could be a good pastime.

January 6th, 2009 at 12:32 am

Chicago Ted says:

There’s more to the voice acting issues than the direction. These games need to hire writers, GOOD ones, not like NBC. That’s the only hope a decent comedic game, and it would go a long way towards helping the voice acting not seem to tacked on.

January 6th, 2009 at 12:40 am

Saul says:

More World of Goo. More Left4Dead. More games as original as those two, with AI Directors out the wazoo.

January 6th, 2009 at 12:55 am

Post Maker says:

Big post; skip by it maybe? Probably boring.

I would gladly play in a sandbox world, even at a much reduced size, if I were able to enter any building I saw. It was infuriating in GTA IV (among others) to think that I could escape through a doorway, only to find out that OOPS the next house over was the one that had the openable door.

Building on that, something along the line of Battlefield: Bad Company’s structured-interactive destruction would be nice if it were applied to a sandbox world (again, even if it were much, much smaller). Being trapped in a building, and deciding that the best way out was to blast out the wall behind me and jump through the hole was a wonderful experience in Bad Company, and I’d like to have that experience again (in a single player mode, one that feels more polished than what Bad Company offered [although I did enjoy what it offered too]).

Building again on that, a reasonable replacement or hiding of invisible walls in such a small environment would be incredible. Setting it on an island doesn’t work; the player wants to swim. Building blockades (of enemies) in a rough circle is workable, but still odd; the player will find a way past those blockades, and if they hit the invisible wall before being killed it reinforces the idea of the limited world. A good solution is to let the player try and walk away from the game, but make it progressively harder to survive the further out they go.

Okay it is all theoretical nonsense from here on out:

For the example, I’m going to use a horror-themed game set in a small town. The town is covered throughout in a dense fog which blankets the streets at night (and recedes during the day for easy exploration of the houses and shops the town has to offer). From dense spots in this fog (used to conceal spawn points for enemy characters) come the monsters that the player must fight. During the day, the fog persists, but only on the outskirts of the town. In this way, the fog is used to define the current “playable” area of the town. As a player progresses through the game, the fog draws back from more sections of the town until the entire area is explorable, with the fog sitting around the town, forming a an easily recognizable boundary for the player to consider. It exists at all times and can be seen from most areas of the town.

The fog is used to hide an invisible wall, set far behind the fog itself. The town is a “playable area”, with boundaries that stop right where the fog begins, marking the “unplayable area”. The unplayable area is divided into several rings of increasing difficulty, with the last ring covering a huge amount of space and marked as a “kill zone”. As the player advances through the rings of unplayable area, the spawns becomes harder to defeat, and occur more frequently, while the fog grows increasingly thick to hide the frequent spawns. The kill zone contains monsters that will destroy vehicles and kill the player in one hit, and are unavoidable; they spawn right in front of the player (with the thick fog hiding this incredibly cheap tactic). These final monsters must either frighten the player or convince them that escape is impossible; they are towering fiends, lumbering through the fog and destroying anything they touch, monsters whose limbs are only visible when they are right in the middle of completely destroying you. They should kill anything near the player as well; watching the toughest monster you’ve ever seen getting killed in one hit by the new monster is a good way to establish how tough this new monster is. To help build up a mythos of sort around these monsters, they should only appear in the kill zone (never in the playable area of the town), and on top of that it should be a rare occurance for the player to hit the kill zone at all. Ideally, these monsters are never going to be seen.

In the unlikely event that a player makes it past a kill zone monster, the area of the kill zone is large enough to allow for another one to spawn in front the them. If the player is about to make it past this second monster then you interevene; the vehicle the player is driving (vehicles must be essential to reach this stage at all) gets picked up by the monster and thrown (back towards town, but don’t make that obvious) or crushes it underfoot. If the player jumps out of the car and runs away they still get killed; the monster crushes them with the car, or steps on them, or a smaller but still near-unkillable monster kills them. Be creative with this stage, because seeing the same cutscene over and again will reinforce the idea of the invisible wall even more than an outright invisible wall itself would.

It’s a little off-topic for this, but the fog helps with expansion packs as well; sections of the fog recede and reveal areas of the countryside that were previously inaccessible.

I have a lot more for this (a whole game concept, really) but the odds that any of it (as well as this) would be worth typing out are low. Is there any interest?

Sorry for the huge-post.

January 6th, 2009 at 1:06 am

Muzman says:

Bug- Bioshock’s story didn’t get in the way of it’s gameplay after the ‘turning point’. It failed to live up to itself on the whole, if you know what I mean.
Without its story there would be no reason to play it. Lobby for more pure gameplay or gameplay that can more easily stand by itself all you like. It certainly wouldn’t hurt to have more of that around. But narrative driven games and games that seek to be more than the sum of their parts are another thing entirely from that.

January 6th, 2009 at 1:13 am

SofS says:

In 2009, I want Game Maker to be fully ported to Mac and Linux platforms. It’s a driving force on the independent scheme and it’ll just get better when more people can easily get involved.

As far as the commercial industry goes, I want to see two related but opposing things. The first would be shorter, cheaper games, like many others are asking for. I want this mainly because it will encourage developers to take more risks, as there will be less to lose on a given game. Spend less, charge less, experiment more, and have fun above all.

The second is related to this comment.

BrokenSymmetry says:

In 2009 I want something I didn’t know I want.

I want to see somebody decide to put it all on the line and try to add to the canon. It’s been a while since I’ve played anything that brought something big and new to the form. (I should mention that I’ve been waiting for some free time to sit down and get comfortable with Dwarf Fortress, which is the sort of thing I’m talking about.) There is a lot left to do in this medium and a lot of dreamers who can make it happen.

January 6th, 2009 at 1:21 am

Post Maker says:

Blindpsychic, I’d love to fund the idea but unfortunately I am not a large company comprised of thousands of people!

January 6th, 2009 at 1:28 am

Eldoop says:

I agree emphatically with the sentiment put forward by someone that open worlds should better reflect the player’s actions. Also, if a game is “open world”, it shouldn’t place restrictions on what you can do. Far Cry 2 is a prime example of this. When you’re inside a building, you can’t use any of your weapons (unless you need to in order to complete a task). You can’t even crouch, jump, or sprint! It’s completely ridiculous.

Fallout 3 does this well. Although I haven’t really played enough to see many consequences to my actions, I do appreciate the freedom it gives you. (I’ve killed nearly every NPC I’ve come across so far.)

In summary, open world games (and other games, really) should allow you to do whatever you want, and should change to reflect what you’ve done. That’s what I would like to see in 2009.

January 6th, 2009 at 2:07 am

Eldoop says:

@Vandelay

the adaptable story of Far Cry 2

What adaptable story? What you do in the game has no effect whatsoever on how the plot unfolds. Or is that what you meant? That you’d like to see more games that can fit the player’s actions into the predetermined storyline no matter what they do? That doesn’t seem especially desirable, but there’s no accounting for taste, I suppose.

Regardless, I would like to see more games keeping you confined to the first-person perspective at all times, as FC2 and HL2 do. It helps immensely to make you feel as though you really are your character, no matter how little power you have over the actual storyline.

In Left 4 Dead, when a Smoker snares a survivor or a Hunter pounces on one, the perspective pulls out to show what’s happening. This completely destroys any illusion you might have created that you are your character, and reduces the scare factor of the game considerably. Watching your character get mauled is considerably less worrying than apparently being mauled and having to stare up into the face of a Hunter.

tl;dr version: First-person games should stay first-person, no matter what.

January 6th, 2009 at 2:30 am

Perfectheat says:

The future of FPS is already out there. Natural Selection. And the sequel may see the light this year.

http://www.unknownworlds.com/blog/

Hopefully it’s the gameplay is not to technical for the masses.

January 6th, 2009 at 3:34 am

PheonixK says:

I’d like to play the final release of Duke Nukem Forever.

Too soon?

January 6th, 2009 at 4:27 am

The Waltz says:

From FPSs I’d like to see more creative gameplay mechanics, like portals, given to the player to use and master over time.

From RPFs, much more free formness… Fallout 3 was great I think, sept the end… but it lacked a lot of free form I wanted. And I think the DC area was poorly executed. I’d much rather have had an open city with the actual streets and such, than huge piles of debri and then the buildings.

And from RTSs, I’d like to see more physics based tactics. Like shooting buildings from a certain direction and making them fall on my enemy. Or blowing up rocks to make a rock slide to take out my enemys army.

The rest can all just… get better.

January 6th, 2009 at 5:20 am

Hoernchen says:

I’d already be happy if they would just make pc games at all, instead of all these incredibly exclusive console games with ‘maybe’ option for a pc version which forces me to wait 6+ months.

January 6th, 2009 at 5:46 am

Fullbleed says:

“So this is the new year. Do you feel any different?”

Is that a Death Cab for Cutie refference?

January 6th, 2009 at 8:49 am

Nifft says:

I want also more “phsychedelic” and “metaphysics” games, whatever that means…

January 6th, 2009 at 8:52 am

bruno says:

I want real AI in FPS.
I’d like some developper to use some extra AI card or AI code like this one :

January 6th, 2009 at 9:07 am

Schmung says:

I also want all the nice story stuff and voice acting that isn’t actually physically painful, but I don’t see it happening when after a good 12 years practice people are still cocking up the most basic elements of the FPS. I played Planetside (albeit briefly) back in the day and it was a wonderful idea with some things done very, very well, but the guns were pretty horrid and ineffective. It was rather like playing Halo (itself a rather treacley game) through an additional layer of treacle and with vaseline smeared on your monitor so that you can’t see properly and keep missing. Or maybe I’m vastly exaggerating because I had such high hopes for it and that after playing it for near enough a week solid I still didn’t like it.

As has been mentioned, there’s an awful lot that can still be done with the FPS with regards movement, setting and mechanics without getting to far away from the core mechanic of shooting people/things in the face. It’s about time that we saw this sort of thing in a big title – mods have been doing interesting things with the basics since the days of Quake. Actually, probably far more so in the days of Quake and Half Life because of the previously mentioned cost of creating all those shiny assets for new games (though it’s cost as in time for modders).

Someone mentioned APB and that’s a game I have really, really high hopes. I have heard talk that it will be out on 360, which suits me rather better than upgrading my prehistoric PC, but if that’s not the case then it just might be enough to pull me back in.

A proper open city is a nice idea, but that’s an awful lot of space that’s not even going to be used for anything in particular and that’s a big waste of time. I guess the solution would be to model the interiors of anything really important and to procedurally generate the interior of anything else when the player decides to enter the building, which would give you escape routes and impromptu battles without the necessity of creating 82,000 rooms that the player is probably never going to see.

I want that Aliens : Colonial Marines game that gearbox are making to really, really good. Like a 2009 version of the pant wetting-ly scary original AvP, with the epic sort of levels that implies and most certainly with the survival co-op mode that it had (up yours GoW2).

January 6th, 2009 at 9:39 am

Feet says:

I’d just like to second that RPS atleast acknowedge Stardocks Elemental: War of Magic, or better do an interview with Brad or something. Pretty much it’s my most looked forward to game of 2009 (well the beta is, I’ve pre-ordered it already). The art style is certainly original and the gameplay mechanics certainly offer a few innovations. And it’s turned-based, and I love me some turned-based! :p

January 6th, 2009 at 9:58 am

Frye says:

Happy new year dear RPS + readers!

I gave up on wishing that AI would actually beat the intelligence of a Pacman ghost on crack. In my ignorance i figured that multicore = smarter enemies.
Dropping corpses off a balcony in a new Hitman, where the shooting bit is actually up to par with ‘ordinary’ shooters. Now THAT would make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

January 6th, 2009 at 10:16 am

Bobsy says:

Dear 2009,

Hi! How’s it going? Man! I don’t think we’ve caught up in, oooh, must be about 4017 years! What are you up to? I hope it includes procedural technology, because it’s clearly the way forward and is in desperate need of a sexy posterchild game. Possibly Subversion? I heard a rumour that you guys might be getting together, although watch out because I heard that lucious vixen 2010 had her eyes on it too.

Also, is there any chance of you collaborating with Infinity? This is exciting stuff! Tell me more! More! More!

Looking forward to seeing you,

Bobs

January 6th, 2009 at 10:34 am

Sagan says:

I want 2009 to be like 2008 again. Maybe with a little less DRM/piracy controversy, and a little more success for new IP, but other than that, 2008 was fine.

January 6th, 2009 at 11:07 am

Vandelay says:

@ Eldoop
What adaptable story? What you do in the game has no effect whatsoever on how the plot unfolds. Or is that what you meant? That you’d like to see more games that can fit the player’s actions into the predetermined storyline no matter what they do? That doesn’t seem especially desirable, but there’s no accounting for taste, I suppose.

No that isn’t what I meant. I mean the way different characters appear at different locations (adaptable was the wrong word really.) If the different personalities of the different characters actually had an effect on the outcome then you could have so many different variables. It isn’t really used to its full extent in Far Cry 2, which is why another game should take its lead. I hope that this technology doesn’t turn out like Red Faction’s destructible environments, where just because it doesn’t work in the original game every decides that it is impossible to make work.

January 6th, 2009 at 11:43 am

Dug Briderider says:

If as stated it takes 18 months for changes to take effect then I believe 2009 will be very exciting, after all the orange box came out over a year ago, I would hope everyone noticed and has learnt something from it.

I find it strange for Valve to be so ahead of the game and other developers not to learn from it. They seem a very open company, surely there is no hidden secret to their success.

Lots of good ideas above, I especially like the FPS with fog of war that appears to be set in M Night Shamalyn’s “Village”. Open world gaming set in a city is too ambitious, set it in a Village and you can fill in all the detail, after all Oblivion’s world of Cyrodil set in whole country can be walked across in less time than it takes for me to walk across my parish (Morrowind may be a different matter).

Also why have just one protagonist? I know people like to identify with the character they are playing but it’s much easier to create a character driven and dramatic story if you can have multiple personalities involved. Take a lesson from “Eternal Darkness” and Dr Who if a character is getting a bit stale kill them off and shift to a new one.

But mainly learn form the mistakes and successes of the of the past and I’ll be happy, I only play a handful of games a year, I don’t have to wade through the muck that the professionals do.

January 6th, 2009 at 11:54 am

H says:

The single biggest improvement I want to see this year is stability. I bought Crysis, installed it and then shelved it in disgust after weeks of trying to cure numerous bugs and glitches. The whole game is now soured for me and I can’t bring myself to go back to it purely because of my initial experiences.

The same, I fear, will be said of GTA IV. I’ve had such a game (ho ho) of trying to get the damn thing working that I’ve all but given up. The single game I most anticipated over the last 18-24 months I am rapidly losing any interest in whatsoever purely because I can’t play it.

Is this really what I spend my hard earned pennies on?

January 6th, 2009 at 12:10 pm

Gap Gen says:

John: Out of interest, does anyone think of gaming in decades? I suppose there was perhaps a kind of shift between, say 1998 and the early 2000s where gaming became more populist and the boundaries between console and PC began to blur, but I’m not convinced that it’s useful to pigeonhole games by decade except as a general “this is what was happening in this rough time”, in which case the 2000/2001 debate is arbitrary (which is kinda what my deleted post was implying). After all, I think that 2000 was more like 1998 than, say, 2002 in gaming terms.

Not that this was a central part of your thesis, but nonetheless.

January 6th, 2009 at 12:24 pm

SanguineLobster says:

I would like… well it’s like a large hat, with a reddish brim, but it has this kind of.. lever on one side and you don’t wear on your head, you strap it to the back of a nearby dog.

January 6th, 2009 at 1:25 pm

Post Maker says:

I’ll guess by the three supportive posts that I should move all my fancy gaming’ idears to a blog and hope for a link from RPS about 3 nevers from now?

What kind of setup is RPS using?

January 6th, 2009 at 1:44 pm

Razor says:

The voice acting bit I fully agree with. The last time I heard really inspiring voice acting in a game was prolly System Shock 2… nothing has really come close since.

WoW is likely the best example (next to STALKER) of game that desperately needs better voice acting. It’s hard to take storylines seriously when the voicing is laughable.

And yes, it is amazing to me as well that companies can focus as much on graphics as they do and totally miss this. Voice really completes the immersion into a game. It needs to be taken more seriously.

January 6th, 2009 at 1:58 pm

Xercies says:

I would like soem more Eastern European Games, they seem to be the bastian of hope for the PC, they may be buggy as hell, they may have some weird ideas but I’m loving every one of them that come out in the mainstream. EA can frankly go to hell for all I care now a days, there time has come and gone. Can’t wait for Cryostasis, Metro 2033, and the others coming out.

More Bioshock like games I have to, ones that push the story and atmosphere of a game. I think Bioshock opened everyones eyes of what you could do with a game, sure there is complaints about it and yes it kind of did copy System Shock 2. But the story, and the philospying really stood out. And so did the enviroment. More Please!

And more great RPGs, Mass Effect and Fallout 3 came out last year and they were both superb. Hopefully Bethesda doesn’t do an Oblivion with there Elder Scrolls 5, and learns a bit more on Fallout 3. And can we please get some games like Balders Gate, and Planescape. Also maybe Square Enix could bring out FF13…please pretty please, your releasing The Last Remnant.

January 6th, 2009 at 1:59 pm

Post Maker says:

Randomnine:

It’s still just a theoretical thing at this point, but the idea was that if it was ever going to built that it would be made sometime in the mysterious future. Sometime around 10 or more years from now (2020?), maybe.

Not that it would, because a lot of the things that would be in it are massive wastes of resources and time, but the whole thing was/is only being used as an exercise in game design theory so I figured I could think up anything at this point and scale it back after the concept was done.

ZOOP here’s a lot of text you won’t be reading:

It all started out as a challenge to remove death from a game, but still let the player fail in some way. We had the idea of numerous situationally-based “death” cutscenes that still technically killed the player, but instead of reloading from a saved game the player was revived somewhere else, completely alright barring a (temporary) drop in health/ sight/ movement speed/ armour, etc. After looking at that, we needed to figure out a way of explaining how the player was revived if there weren’t any people around (if the player was in a sewer system, or out in a forest for example), which lead to all sorts of improbable horseshit ideas being flung back and forth, one of which was, “What if the player was a zombie?”.

Working off that, and after deciding that a zombie wouldn’t have enough real mainstream appeal (everyone says they love the idea and would play the life out of it, but rarely will they cough up the money when it comes out) we went with the “mysterious force” route trying to figure out what we could use to bring the player back. We hit a dead end, but we solved that problem later when coming up with the “mysterious fog” idea for hiding invisible walls. If the fog spawns monsters, turns people into monsters, and allows those monsters to come back from death, why not have the player affected by it too?

This worked out well (again, still theoretical so anything could work out well at this point) because not only could we avoid frequent load times at high difficulties, we could rubberband the player back into town if they tried to escape and were defeated in the unplayable area’s kill zone. It also let us make use of other people inside the game world, something that wouldn’t have made any sense up to this point (how could they have survived?). It let us think in terms of interaction with people (talking, bartering, etc.) instead of interaction with monsters (shoot at it until it dies, hit the weak spot for massive damage, etc.) and lead to the idea of shop keeps and quest givers (which isn’t always the best route but none of this game is real so it’s not all that important right now), locked away in heavily fortified positions but still needing your help.

This is still being tossed around for feasibility (as is the idea of other people existing in the game at all [co-op is included in that debate]), but we were considering a bartering system in exchange for services. A doctor would dress your wounds (and do it better than you ever could to ensure that she doesn’t become redundant), but she’d want some help from you in exchange. She’ll patch up half your wounds and do the rest later when you’ve brought her some guns to defend herself with, or boarded up some of her windows to prevent the smaller monsters from causing too much trouble. Bringing her medicine will allow her to do her job more effectively, and in general helping ensure that she stays alive will reduce the “barter cost” for the next time she needs your help. A mechanic could upgrade your vehicle with armour and weapons if you provide junk metal and guns (stolen from from the gun shop/ homes of dead residents), and he’ll do it for you faster if you provide him with food and medicine, weapons for himself or messages from/to the other shopkeeps.

What these people want won’t always be the same. Some of them will want money (even though it’s worthless) so you’ll go and rob the bank. Others will want vehicles to try and escape, information, or transport to a new safehouse, in addition to the standard means of bartering (food/ water/ guns/ ammo, etc.). Doing these tasks for them will allow them to help you more effectively, and in turn they’ll let you know where other people are holed up so you can expand your list of helpers (although there won’t ever be any more than 12 or so people to talk to [depending on the size of the town]). Of course this all boils to down to standard fetch-questry, which is why it’s under debate, but if the barter quests were spaced out well enough and were never allowed to interfere with each other or other missions (as well as being fun, and having a story behind them) then it could be done. The hope is that the fetch-questing could be used to flesh out the character of the person you’re working for by raiding their old houses during some of the more personalized missions; if you see that the mechanic had a wife and child you might understand why he’s reluctant to shoot at any of the townsfolk-turned-monsters. The problem is two-fold, in that it would be “hard” to make those things affect the player emotionally (good writing and voice-work are required), and it’s still a fetch quest so it would take a lot to make those fun/ engaging in any way.

(I’m considering the name Fog Blog for the silly blog about the silly game that will never be, any thoughts on that/ the big game idea above?)

Sorry for the huge post, again

January 6th, 2009 at 3:31 pm

Larington says:

Don’t quote me on this, but I’m fairly certain that it takes ages for the damage to add up in planetside because otherwise you’d have people instagibbing you all the time by jumping at you from around corners in a ‘whoevers net connection is fastest wins’ war. Not fun. It was bad enough with the jackhammer tripleshot and that despite some of the restrictions to its use. Certainly, if I were to revisit PS as a designer (And I have extensively as a hobbyist, as in, started work on a game design document for a spiritual successor to Planetside), I wouldn’t be in a hurry to speed up the time it takes to gun down an enemy trooper, except maybe where I can control for potential internet conflict issues, like the old charging up of a sniper rifle round and laser sight in the victims view of an incomming headshot that was used back in the days of TFC.

Also:
“Whatside?… Planetside!”

January 6th, 2009 at 3:54 pm

Srejv says:

Why didn’t RPS cover A Vampyre Story?
Or maybe RPS did.

January 6th, 2009 at 4:24 pm

Larington says:

Wishful thinking probably, but the US government may be getting involved in the DRM fiasco.
http://www.gamepolitics.com/2009/01/06/do-consumers-need-govt-protection-drm-it039s-agenda-ftc-conference

I’d normally not mention something relating to DRM due to potential thread derailment issues, but this could be BIG news.

January 6th, 2009 at 5:01 pm

Post Maker says:

Larington:

We were tossing around a similar idea for a chase during the later levels, where one of the larger monsters (not a killzone monster, just a really big regular one) would be following the player (who was hopefully in a vehicle) around the town, with the fog closing in and cutting off the player’s view of the surroundings, then drawing back to reveal that they had been transported to some other area of town (one of maybe 20-30 randomly-chosen spawn points that the player be could dropped into during the chase).

The catch was going to be that you could avoid being teleported, but if you were the monster wouldn’t be teleported with you. The danger was that some of the teleport points were going to be underwater (drowning) or on top of buildings (deadly fall damage/ long trek down the stairs), so it was a gamble on how you wanted to escape. We put it to the side because of a large amount of problems that came up during another idea tossing session. If the fog makes the monsters, and it wants you dead (at this point we were considering the idea that the fog was sentient [we tossed that because it was the stupidest fucking thing we had ever heard]), why is it giving you the chance to escape? Why not teleport the monster to you if you managed to drive away? That, and we were still figuring out how the world would work at the time (something that still hasn’t quite been halfway finished) so it didn’t make sense to plan out a huge exciting gameplay section that we might have to scrap if the rules were changed later on.

The other idea (and the one that is closest to yours) was to use the fog to simplify the unplayable area, with the player running through the same section over and again (provided they were going away from town) with the fog drawing in behind them the longer they ran away (to disguise the fact that they weren’t actually moving anywhere). Keeping track of distance travelled would allow for a realistic amount of time required to travel back to town and help prevent a bunch of comparisons to Bowser’s Endless Staircase.

I’ve set a blog on about the game but there’s nothing on it yet, I’ll write a few posts and then poop out a link maybe? It’s on Wordpress.

HINTS.

January 6th, 2009 at 5:11 pm

Post Maker says:

You aren’t going to delete my stuff, are you?

I don’t really have it saved anywhere and I’m kind of enjoying the conversation here.

January 6th, 2009 at 5:19 pm

Post Maker says:

Oh my.

January 6th, 2009 at 5:22 pm

Candid_Man says:

@Jim

A bit irresponsible as an answer, is it not? I should “tough”? Censorship =/= Weather.

I don’t think I’m the only one who’s uncomfortable with this. Along with your articles themselves, the comments threads are a major part of “your blog’s” content. There are many commenters here who are, if not in the industry itself, at least a very knowledgeable bunch. I don’t think it is an exaggeration to consider that many of your articles depend in good proportion of the good will of these same commenters to keep you guys in the loop (regarding such and such mods, games, news, etc.). This good will, I feel, is not reciprocated with your policy of “tough-guy” arbitrary Censorship. Discuss.

January 6th, 2009 at 6:08 pm

Post Maker says:

If you look anything like your avatar then I wish you the best of luck.

January 6th, 2009 at 6:18 pm

Funky Badger says:

No more invincible children in games.
Fable 2’s word mechanics under the bonnet of Fallout 3s’ engine.
The slow, agonising, mute demise of all internet trolls (myself excluded).
Ditto Ps.

January 6th, 2009 at 6:58 pm

Post Maker says:

Little Lamplight in Fallout 3 is the perfect example of how not to write for children. Specifically the mayor, McGrady I think it was. I understand that the idea was to create characters that the player could hate but I’m never going through Fallout 3’s main stoyline again because of that place.

Blog is up. I came across the url while entering randomly cobbled together names when the first 3 attempts didn’t work. I like it well enough.

January 6th, 2009 at 7:28 pm

Funky Badger says:

Pags: is that Zooey out of Left 4 Dead?

January 6th, 2009 at 8:47 pm

Pags says:

Funky Badger: not quite. Though it would go some way to affirming my belief that musicians aren’t real people (or that game characters are, or something, either way it’s something really meta).

January 6th, 2009 at 8:56 pm

Schmung says:

I actually think something like Fallout 3s quest structure could work in a GTA IV context. Having an overall objective to achieve and being given some pointers on people to speak to rather than the linear progression of pick up X, take him to Y etc

Take the bank job missions for instance, it would be delightful if they told you that the bank needed robbing and you have the option of just wandering off and doing it yourself or digging a bit deeper and finding someone to disable the security first etc etc

Actually, I’m talking out of my arse, since what I apparently want is an action-RPG mod thing for GTA IV, which really I just a whole different game. Bugger.

January 6th, 2009 at 10:00 pm

etho says:

I’d like a couple more campaigns for Left 4 Dead. Also a Sniper pack for TF2. I’m easy to please.

Also some cool games, I guess.

Also, I’d like RPS to run more articles as good as the Pathologic dissection. The day to day stuff is good, but that series was excellent.

January 7th, 2009 at 12:41 am

Nutterguy says:

Totally agree with Feet.
Plus everyone quits wow and gets back to real games.

Feet says:
I’d like…

- More mad
- More meaningful choices
- Less faux choices
- Less MMOs
- Less crappy or late or both ports
- Less DRM bs
- More rewarding paying customers
- More turned-based games
- Less graphics
- More gameplays
- More games with writing
- Less games with stupidness

January 10th, 2009 at 2:27 pm