Games and their unique game play

I spent the last week finishing off Max Payne 3, which really is a great game (I also got it for a lovely £4 on Steam). Very good story line and pretty much constant action, Max even turns into John McClane for a portion of the game! What I had the most fun with though was the 'Bullet Time' slow motion game play effect.

This got me thinking last night, with the gaming world constantly changing and new ideas being thrown around, where did some of these unique game play effects start? And which games have made the most use of these effects? Lets take a look.

Yippee ki-yay!

Max Payne (Series) - Bullet time

I will start with what I just finished. Max Payne pretty much revolves around bullet time, in simple terms, slow motion. When activated time slows down to the point where the player can see individual shots fired at them and also enables Max to go on the offensive. The advantage is that even knowing time is slowed, Payne can still aim in real time giving you the chance to get those satisfying head shots. To add the the effect, when you down the final enemy in the area you are treated to bullet camera which shows your winning kill.

The Matrix films were famous for using the slow-mo effect but in the video game world Requiem: Avenging Angel was one of the first to use it. You can get a glimpse of it here (starts about 2:45).

Gears of War (Series) - Cover system

GOW, released in 2006, was I think when the cover system really got its acclaim. The games selling point was its cover based combat game play, you can easily jump behind cover at the touch of a button and used it to tactically take down the Locust horde. You could pick enemies off by peaking from cover to get a well aimed shot or use the non risky blind fire approach. This was improved for GOW 2 thanks to an improved Unreal engine when cover would take damage from gun fire.

The cover system was used well before Gears of Wars time, you could go right back 1986 when 'Rolling Thunder' was released to get your first glimpse of cover based game play. 'Kill Switch' was the first game to base its game play on cover, you also have the first two Metal Gear Solid games and Uncharted: Drakes fortune which used the system just before Gears was released.

Mirrors Edge - Free running

Mirrors Edge really is in a league of its own when it comes to uniqueness. It is based on Parkour and truly is a first person experience, the use of cameras and being able to see Faith's limbs while performing sprints and big jumps helps create the feeling of performing free running moves. The game also uses 'Runners Vision' which highlights pieces of scenery you can interact with to perform your moves. 'Bullet Time' also features in a slightly different variance, 'Reaction Time' slows time down to enable the player to plan our the next move without losing speed and momentum.

Like I said, Mirrors Edge really is one of kind. The only game that kind of comes close is 'Prince of Persia' for his ability to run along walls but even that is really clutching at straws.

Those are the three that jumped at me while thinking about this, there are probably loads more examples out there. If you can think of any then please feel free to comment below. Meanwhile, I will sit back and wait for the next game to utilise or possibly even revolutionise a new game play mechanic.

@Joe_Copson

DLC, Expansion packs, Pre order bonuses and all that s**t

Gaming is an expensive hobby, fact. Console games now cost £49.99...but that isn't the final cost for most games anymore. If you're relatively young DLC is probably the norm for you but us slightly older ladies and gentleman remember a more simple time. Let us go back in time.

Late 1998 I was introduced to one of my favourite games of all time, Baldurs Gate on the PC. At the time I believe it cost me about £30, If I was being truly honest my PC wasn't good enough to run it so I played it at a friends house. I won't go into detail about the game but it was engaging, difficult, full of things to do and had a decent sized campaign. This was my first introduction to an expansion pack (I guess early name for DLC), Tales of the sword coast was released in April 1999 and added roughly 30 hours extra game play to the original game. The key point I want to make here is that it didn't directly impact the main storyline/campaign.

Fast forward to 10th April 2015. Evolve was released to absolute uproar when DLC was available the day of release. Gone are they days games cost only the amount you pay for the actual game. At the time of writing, buying Evolve with all add-ons and passes would cost you a massive £68.68 (two and fraction a Baldurs Gates for you budding mathematicians!). Almost £70 for a game that, if truth be told, isn't technically finished. Are developers under too much pressure to meet a deadline that they throw out an unfinished product? Or do they know we will lap up everything they throw at us and see the big £££ signs?

I can't just pick on Evolve, pretty much all new releases do it now. Battlefield: Hardline has been released with a standard and a deluxe edition, the latter giving you access to more equipment. Mortal Kombat promises you bonus characters if you preorder and has DLC ready to sell on release date.

I don't necessarily have a problem with new content but some games now push for you to buy the content by locking parts of the game down, my previous article about Destiny is a key example. Call of Duty gives us maps from previous games, Rock Band/Guitar Hero bleed us dry with extra songs.

The way things are going it seems to me that if you don't get the content you put yourself at a huge disadvantage. Not just because you miss out on new features but in some games spending more money gives you an advantage over the competition.

Whichever way you look at it DLC is here to stay and will more than likely keep growing in price but what can we do, stop playing games in protest?

@joe_copson

Destiny - BAFTA game of the year 2014?

So, it's been a while (May 8th 2014!) but I have finally found some time to start up again.

September 9th, 2014. I shot home from work hoping that my copy of Destiny was in my mail box. To my obvious delight it was there and from then on I thought I had found the next game to keep me company for months on end...or so I thought.

I will admit I was hooked, played it every day and night at every spare moment I got. I loved the premise, looked great and sounded great. So where did it all go wrong?

Getting to Level 20 and the constant searching for legendary and exotic gear was quite addictive at first but once that was achieved you were forced to do the Daily, Weekly and Nightfall Strikes.This became disgustingly boring once they started to recycle them over and over again. Even the Crucible became repetitive with the low number of maps and game modes.

Still I stuck with it thinking the first DLC (Ergh, I hate that word) would burst new life into a stale story. My friend and I refused to buy it at first, we wanted to wait until we had maxed out our levels...but then this hit us

Wow, we were pissed. It pretty much forced our hand to buy the DLC otherwise we had to wait a week for the missions to recycle. We were addicted at that point, they had won this round!

It took us a matter of days to finish 'The Dark Below' extra story missions. After that I slowly stopped playing. If you missed a few days you fell behind, missed out on doing Raids etc. You then missed out on better equipment, which then got you shouted at when doing a Raid with more experienced players!

In conclusion, I though it had mega potential and you never know it might fulfil it one day but I have come away disappointed. It was named BAFTA game of the year and has roughly 13 million active players so it is doing something right....isn't it?

Ps here is my scientific Destiny enjoyment chart

Feel free to comment below

@Joe_Copson