Unlocking the LEGO box

I’ve been playing quite a lot of Batman LEGO these last days, finishing the main adventure for both heroes and villains, and reaching something like 80% of completion. But, in the last days, some design decisions have become quite prominent to me, some in good, some in bad.

First, the good: deadly is deadly.
In the LEGO Batman universe, hazards are pretty consistent either for your characters or for the enemies. Which means that radioactive stuff or fumes kills them as much as it kills you, and glacial fumes freeze you and them as well. It’s pretty much a detail, but it made a boss fight far easier for me through a stroke of luck: in the level against Catwoman and the penguin, Catwoman is only a sidekick. You can not beat her with your fists: she will run away from you when hurt, and come back later. And believe me, she can be a pain.
But, as I was exploring the area, one of my hits sent her flying in a patch of radioactive goo. And before my eyes, she dissolved… No more sidekick for the penguin ! Needless to say, the fight went pretty much downhill for him after that (not that he was really winning before that event…)

I like when games have the same set of rules for you and for your enemies. You do not feel arbitrarily limited in your interaction with the world, you do not feel that everything is stacked against you.
Also, I find it helps with the suspension of disbelief: the gameworld is logical.

After that, my beef is with the unlocking system. No, not so much the system (having to use multiple characters abilities to reach a hidden brick that unlocks something, that’s something the Explorer and Achiever in me do like) than the unlocks themselves.

Let’s start with the ridiculous: the multipliers bonus.
In the game, you collect studs, which are used as a currency to buy just about everything: additional characters and vehicles, data, and upgrades (once they have been unlocked through hidden bricks in each level). Some of these upgrades are multipliers: x2, x4, up to x10. The first one costs 1 000 000, the last one 5 000 000.
My first (logical) thought was “Each one will replace the lesser one” or “only one may be active at a time”. A simple calculation showed me that buying them in order would cost me, not 15 000 000 studs, but 4 041 666. Better than buying the 5x directly.
You can imagine my surprise when, buyin the x4, I see the x2 on my screen changing to a x8. Long story short, I reached a ludicrous x640 modifier, making all my studs needs moot (but not my stud’s… nevermind).

This, I did not like. Why? Because up to now, I had choices to make whenever I bought something. I did not have enough money, so every time, I had to ask myself what I wanted to buy. That was my story. Now… Not so much… I just had a laundry list of things to buy, and the limiting factor was to unlock them…
To their defense, it is possible to disable these. I did, but not before going on a destruction spree due the power rush it gave me. Kind of like when Tabula Rasa offered a +2000% XP bonus some weeks before closing down. I gained 7 levels in one evening, then was left with a sour taste in my mouth, having outleveled content I wanted to enjoy.
Power rush is a dangerous thing for the weak-minded... I never said I was perfect !


My next gripe is with suit upgrades.
Most, if not all of them, are Nice-to-Haves: more targets with a batarang, swifter construction and so on. Not gamebreaking, but reducing the time needed for some actions that can be considered “less fun”, thus improving the fun proportion. I’m cool with that.
But then, why is their use limited to the free mode ?! If I take the time to redo a level to unlock an upgrade I’m interested in, why must I be punished by not being able to use it during the story mode, thus enabling me to enjoy the story more?

There was also a bit of cutscene power upgrade, where villains tend to have their abilities upgraded when you’re against them (Catwoman makes huge jump, moth man can glide much longer), but it’s more nitpicking than griping. It’s a minor detail than doesn’t really break the suspension of disbelief.

So, in short, I prefer to see games:
-> Where the rules are the same for the player characters and for the non-player characters.
-> Where upgrades do not suddenly break the game, making everything trivial, or redundant
-> Where, if I take the time to achieve something, I’m awarded the achievement’s result for the rest of the game

Replay it again, Sam ! (part 2)

Welcome to the second part of this post ! The first part was about replaying a game in a short window of time. The following reasons are better suited when some time has already passed…

Nostalgia
Or “Hey, remember when..?”

Replaying a game after some months, or years have passed, means that you liked something about the game. Was it the design? The characters? The world? Whatever. But something compels you to come back again, to something you already mainly know.

But… How long will you play? Most people I have asked answered that they will only dip their foot in the pool, so to speak, and rarely go frolicking for a long time. One evening, maybe a weekend, rarely more. I even know some people who keep save games located just before a particular event they liked and will only play through that event.
In the end, you just want a quick trip down Memory lane, but you do not need to go through all its mazes: you already know them, after all…

Challenges

Here, you come back with a clear challenge in mind, self imposed. In the first part, I had announced that this would be “Perfection”, but perfection is only one of many challenges you can set yourself.
I remember playing Max Payne 2 again with a friend, but only some levels (the dream sequences, mainly), trying to do them as fast as possible, looking for that extra second to spare…
I remember seeing a walkthrough explaining how to go through Chrono Trigger while retaining Chrono at level 1…
“Can I do it?”
Big question. But people like to try, to brag, or just to know that yes, they can.

The duration has no impact: you have a goal, you want to reach it.

Conclusion

So, what did we learn?
First, let me state that this article wasn’t just about me: I asked some friends and people for their input (that’s how “Perfection” became ”Challenges”; thanks for that, E-Link! ), which mainly confirmed what I thought.

1°) Many people will play immediately through a game again if it unlocked content (playable or not), and if the length of the new playthrough isn’t too long.
2°) Many people will play immediately through the same game again when they can retain their data, to see how strong their character is. BUT most will stop a long time before the end.
3°) Replaying in higher difficulty appeals to some gamers, but not all. Less so if it’s the exact same game, and only the enemy’s strength varies.
4°) Players are adept at creating their own challenges when a game offers none anymore
5°) Sometimes, players like to come back to something they know, just to see if it’s still the same…

Food for thought, and discussion, I hope ;)