T w e n t y S i d e d

Another episode of fun mechanics, rich environments, and bland characters. To expand a bit on the question that Rutskarn posed: What do you think of games that allow you to skip or miss content?

Allow me to refine the answer I gave in the episode: We’re really talking about three different types of content:

1. Mutually exclusive paths. You can go through Route A or Route B, but you can’t see both areas in the same play-through. You can either blow up the Collector base or preserve it.
2. Optional content: We can skip this section if you don’t want to be distracted from the main mission. You can decide to help Jacob or just ignore him.
3. Hidden or obscured content that’s only accessible to the diligent, lucky, or thorough player. You can only do the mission for Conrad Verner if you find him, if he’s still alive, and if you made the right choices in the past.

If there are only one or two nuggets of optional content, then I find it slightly annoying. I don’t want to play the whole game again just to see the five minutes I missed. However, once you get enough optional content it starts to justify a second play-through. And if I am going to do a second play-through, then I want as much alternate content as I can get. So I guess my answer is that when it comes to optional content, I want “Nothing or a double helping“, as Pippin Merry says.

But that’s just my thoughts. How about you: What do you think of games that allow you to skip or miss content?

Also note how this ties in with the save-game stuff we talked about yesterday. Some people like to save, go down one path, then re-load, and take the other. This is often difficult or impossible with checkpoint saves.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Looks like this game is going to wrap up just in time. We’re at the point of the commentary where we’re starting to repeat ourselves and go off-topic. That usually spells disaster if we’re still a long way from the end, but here we’re getting close.

To answer the oft-repeated question: We haven’t decided if we’re doing Knife of Dunwall yet. Some of us are playing it. I’ll play it this weekend. We’ll cover it if we have interesting things to say.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

We keep harping on how dull the performances are in this game, but are they really? Are they really that bad, or are they bad because their faces don’t follow the performance? (Aside from the Outsider. Let’s ignore him for now.) I can close my eyes and imagine the actors giving really intense performances. Tight face. Suspicious eyes. Clenched jaw. I’m reminded of the Skyrim preview where we could see Christopher Plummer side-by-side with the character he was voicing, and how his performance came off as dull and wooden because none of it showed up on his character’s face.

This game feels the same. Pendleton doesn’t show any emotion in his face when he’s talking about his brothers. Not anger, or sadness, or anything. It’s possible that if Derek Phillips had put more energy into his performance it would have come off as overblown and hammy, because again – dead face.

We made a fuss over The Walking Dead, but I’m starting to suspect the secret of that game was that they had characters who could really emote. Sometimes we get dudes that can glower or rage, but outside of TWD I can’t remember the last time I saw really good facial performances of regret, loss, confusion, etc.

I don’t know. I’m mostly thinking out loud. I’m not convinced I’m 100% right, but I suspect that over the years I’ve been blaming voice actors for the sins of the animators.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.