I've posted this as an "impressions" article when it's really a rant about dumbing down games but I think it's quite interesting. Gone Gold's Night Call column has some observations about DX:IW and what makes a good game:The target market for Invisible War was clearly everyone. That's fine, but in the process of making the game accessible to a much larger audience, they stripped the game of most of the elements that made the original Deus Ex challenging and fun. You can design a game that anyone can play, but that doesn't mean they'll want to.
Challenge. Great games are challenging. They make demands. If the demands are unfair, the game fails, but that's a risk that must be taken, because demands must be made.
KOTOR challenges us. It is a complex, satisfying, demanding game, and we respond to the demands. It is undoubtedly going to be named Game of the Year for both Xbox and PC, proving that it is possible to satisfy both PC and console gamers. KOTOR does it by raising the bar. Invisible War tries to do it by lowering the bar, and it fails badly. |