Wired article - Halo3 gametesting

Interesting article about the lengths MS is going to, to make the game accessible for everyone.

http://www.wired.com/gaming/virtualworlds/magazine/15-09/ff_halo?currentPage=1

Too much science, not enough fun...

I wish I had this much for my beta testing (when it comes around)

It's true that when they try to make a movie that appeals to 'everyone', then it usually results in something bland and unchallenging.

Not sure about games though - possibly because you can alter the experience for newbies versus hardcore.

IT takes away any sence of victory when you finish a game.

If you play a game that feels hard, and its from a small studio, then you know that you are just as good as their play testers, who lets face it, most of the time are the programers. So they know how to win. Wereas you win cos youre good.

If on the other hand, you play to the End of Halo 3 (for example), were is the sence of achievement, when the game has been specificly changed to be easy enough for everyone to be able to finish.

Bet you when they were play testing "FarCry" the balance editor never once said, "Oh bugger, were not making it easy enough"

This is why art is flawed.

This game will be really unsatisfying on a very deep level. You need to be pissed off a lot to enjoy the win.

I'd qualify that by saying that you do need to be 'pissed off', but with yourself for having made gameplay mistakes. In other words, the game has given you the danger signals and the tools to be sucessful, you just ignored or misused them. We've all played games where all of a sudden, for no apparent reason, you're dead.

In fact, FarCry often irked me because the difficulty was all over the place - even on easy.

Just go play Halo 1 on Legendary again ...

Theres far too much crazy money going on in games, its no wonder the games cost a fortune.

Was a good article ... got the issue today.