“Player Tailoring,” says former Tomb Raider: Underworld creative director, Eric Lindstrom, “lets players emphasize or tone down action and puzzle elements according to their personal tastes.”
He’s proudly welcoming his new buzzword into the gaming lexis: an inconspicuous menu option that allows Tomb Raider players to tweak the difficulty of its multiple genres independently. Those distracted by the (frankly, awful) combat can lower enemy health, but retain the difficulty in Lara’s laborious acrobatics. It’s the difference between turning a volume knob or futzing with ten different equaliser sliders to boost a singer’s vocals and drown out the drums.
Ultimately, it can be seen as current Tomb Raider developer, Crystal Dynamics, explicitly acknowledging that their combat is weak or frustrating. But, cynicism aside, this so called Player Tailoring may have a future in gaming.
Videogames, still in their adolescent youth, are a medium of conventions and paradigms, and it only takes one successful application for it to become prevalent. Taking cover behind objects in shooters was a foreign concept and infrequently used in obscure titles like Operation: Winback. Epic’s mega success Gears of War reintroduced the concept, and it’s now widely used across the genre.
“People are not in the business of designing games. They’re in the business of playing games,” expands Lindstrom, and his point rings true in games like Skate 2. Not hidden in a menu, kept out of reach to everyone except skating savants, the game tasks you with tightening your wheels and trucks before you even start skating – more overwhelmingly terrifying than liberating. For me, however, my Skate 2 customisation wishes are far more pedestrian.
I want to take out the cars, I want to remove the bystanders and I want to get rid of the other skaters in the game. They’re a nuisance and they frustrate me; every time a perfect line is ruined by a businessman yakking on his phone, or a downhill charge is intersected by traffic, I call out for the option to turn these annoyances off. I paid £40 for the game, so why should I be so constricted?
I’m simply talking about just skating around New San Vanelona; I earn no achievements, I don’t progress in the game and I seek no accomplishment. When it comes to the tightly constructed missions, however, player tailoring offers many design challenges.
While Lindstrom champions his new device, I can imagine other developers quaking in their boots. Suddenly they’re no longer the draconian ruler and, like giving multiple camera angles on a DVD release, they can’t hold the reins on the player so tight. How do you treat players who drop difficulties to low and use hints at every turn, and those who stick it out with the hardest challenge, the same?
Game designer, Reid Bryant Kimball, who worked most recently on The Force Unleashed, questions the system. Should players be punished for using the system, offering fewer rewards (unlockables, achievements, etc) or charging in-game costs for lowering the challenge? Nintendo DS puzzler Professor Layton requires “hint coins” to unlock clues, while Underworld gives unlimited puzzle hints for free.
Other systems for providing hints, changing difficulty and tailoring the experience to the player are offered continually; SiN Episodes toyed with dynamically altering difficulty based on experience and Nintendo recently registered a patent for in-game hints. It’s an ongoing subject, but Underworld’s unorthodox new initiative is certainly a step in the right direction.
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