Saturday, September 25, 2010

Nitpicks About Gaming - Transitions and Yes/No

Games have come a long way ever since their first conception. From one of the first building blocks, Pong, to much more complex structures, such as Deus Ex and Ratchet & Clank. However, there's quite a few things which I feel is a step back for a lot of games, and should either be changed or removed entirely.

You're probably guessing that I'm gonna start ranting about regenerating health and perks. Those things are good when implemented well, and I don't see a huge problem with them. No, there's a lot more things that just need to go, mainly because they annoy me.

Right now the first thing on my mind is transitions between menus. Especially when you go into the options menu, and you have to sit through a three-second fade in/fade out transition whenever you select something. Tons of fun when you have to mash the cancel button just to get out of a series of menus, huh? Menu transitions should be instant and snappy, you didn't buy the game just to wait on it.

Another thing that I really hate is the Yes/No dialogue pop-ups. Sometimes you're not ready for them, and you suddenly pick the default option, and usually that turns out to be the wrong option. I'm pretty sure tons of people got fed up with accidentally selecting 'Yes' to the "Would you like to hear that again?" question. One game that handled this beautifully is Half-Minute Hero; the cursor was between the Yes and No options so you couldn't accidentally select the incorrect option. I wish every game did that.

Yeah, it's a 'But thou must!' question, but still.

3 comments:

  1. "I'm pretty sure tons of people got fed up with accidentally selecting 'Yes' to the "Would you like to hear that again?" question. "

    FFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUU
    Ocarina of Time.......... stupid owl.

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  2. I would also like to add on this:

    "Tons of fun when you have to mash the cancel button just to get out of a series of menus, huh? "

    -- The transitions are part of sprucing up the graphical interface of a game - I do think they're necessary. HOWEVER, it is very annoying when you have to back up back up back up like Spongebob trying to drive. XP So, I think taking out those graphical transitions would be beneficial when in the "reverse" direction of navigation.

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  3. I'll agree with that second bit. Another solution I can think of offhand is Suikoden V. Lots of Yes/No type questions there, but when one is about to pop up, you get about a two-second delay after the dialogue appears before you get a chance to select.

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