Where are they now? Game features/mechanics that mysteriously went MIA

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Originally Posted by khaz

This exists and its brilliant. And it's from the wonderful people at Platinum.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...-reigns-review

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I'm going to investigate this further. The review makes it sound like exactly what I'm looking for. If so, more of this please and take my money! Not so hot on the aesthetic, and it looks like it might be a bit bloody for my liking, but it's cartoony enough that I could probably get used to that after a few wince-filled playthroughs. Even stupidly fake gore gets an immediate reaction out of me ... long-term, I'm fine with it, but it takes a second and a deep breath at times.

Edit: That is, take my money in about five years when I have a computer that can do 360 Emulation. Argh! Curse you, consoles, for stealing my dreams! Ah well. Ooh, I forgot, thanks for the tip off! :D

I can always rent it and bum a friend's box for a few hours. I just need to find someone who likes this sort of game.

Other than Prince of Persia and Braid, some games would be better with a rewind button than a checkpoint

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Originally Posted by soldant

As others have said Mass Effect had a codex, and Civilization V had its Civlopedia as well as the more basic tooltips.

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The Civolpedia is a manual. And generally , a very good one at that. I didn't say that manuals have to be on paper and non-interactive! The Mass Effect codex also counts. Would of been nice to have something similar in a lot of other games.

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Originally Posted by Nalano

Alt-fire still exists.

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It DOES? Where? When? I honestly can not remember any shooter with "Alt fire" these days.

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Originally Posted by riadsala

The Civolpedia is a manual. And generally , a very good one at that. I didn't say that manuals have to be on paper and non-interactive! The Mass Effect codex also counts. Would of been nice to have something similar in a lot of other games.

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Well okay then, but I thought you were talking about the days of yore when your game would come with a big printed manual filled with things that may or may not actually be useful. Like how Red Alert came with a thick-ish manual (i.e. not a pamphlet) that described all the buildings and units... except from memory it should have just said "Everything except tanks are shit."

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Originally Posted by soldant

Well okay then, but I thought you were talking about the days of yore when your game would come with a big printed manual filled with things that may or may not actually be useful. Like how Red Alert came with a thick-ish manual (i.e. not a pamphlet) that described all the buildings and units... except from memory it should have just said "Everything except tanks are shit."

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"But dogs look cool when they're hit by Tesla coils. Also giant ants."

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Originally Posted by Nalano

They're sold in the same section of the store, and rulesets based on playability and rulesets based on simulation are two ends of a sliding scale anyway.

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Originally Posted by soldant

True that games and sims are different, but as Nalano points out they do cross over no matter how much the simmers want to distance themselves from the "mere toys that are games" (their words... probably, I'm sure I've seen it tossed around on avsim). It's entirely possible to include enough information in the game itself to get people started. The idea of a manual being entirely mandatory died for a good reason - games were limited by what they could display at runtime, either due to memory or resolution constraints, and that isn't a problem anymore. There's no reason why the basics can't be included. True: sims inherently rely on a manual more than most games today (which probably don't need manuals if they've got a decent in-game system) due to their complexity. But by the same token the fact that someone doesn't want to read through 600 pages just to play the game (or the sim) isn't a reflection on gamers being stoopid and not wanting to read, just that they don't want to wade through lots of unnecessary text. You can play DCS: A10 with just the Quickstart guide for example, and that could have been made into a decent tutorial quite easily.

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Well, see, you've argued both sides so well that there's nothing for me to disagree with! Not much point me writing a long response to say how much I agree with you two, I am after all one of the gamer types who picks up a hardcore sim and learns by crashing, random key pressing and the occasional YouTube video.

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Originally Posted by Nalano

Alt-fire still exists.

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It does but it's much rarer than it used to be, as I play maybe one game with alt fire for every five or six without I tend to miss it.

I also miss being able to carry more than two guns and some equipment, there are still games that let you do that but they're rare too. The only game I can think of that I've played lately that let me carry a whole load of guns is Serious Sam 3: BFE (even though I only played as far as getting the sledgehammer, pistol and shotgun) and Hard Reset, which hilariously still only has two guns but a pile of firing modes which act as different weapons.

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Originally Posted by soldant

As for wikis - yeah they're not manual replacements, but do you need a manual to know how to buy something from the store in Killing Floor? I was just countering the point that gamers clearly are interested in all of the juicy manual stuff to the point where they write pages and pages of the stuff, so it's not an issue of people just not wanting to read, just that people expect games to explain their basics in the game itself. And in the modern age of gaming, there's no reason why they can't.

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True, I think I completely misunderstood what you were saying to be honest. And the Killing Floor example was a pretty poor choice. I think the thing is I've only recently gotten into PC gaming and was a console gamer for maybe 18 years before that, the manuals there mostly just explained the basics of how to play because quite often the manual would have several translations in it and it had to fit inside a PS1, PS2 or PS3 case. Every now and then you'd find a proper manual, like the Metal Gear Solid ones which explained some of the story or the one that came with the Collector's Edition of GT5 which explained actual driving techniques which weren't necessarily explained in the game, though the licence tests do explain a lot of what you need. You wouldn't find that stuff on the GT5 wiki but it's also not the sort of thing you'd find in a basic manual... So I think I get what you were saying now. Is it ironic that we're talking about gamers not wanting to read and I have just made it pretty clear that I didn't really read what you posted properly?

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Originally Posted by khaz

This exists and its brilliant. And it's from the wonderful people at Platinum.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...-reigns-review

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Finally another use for my PS3 other than GoW and a blu-rays.