Editorial: Why games that should be good/great fall short

[Teancum]

Before I begin, let me just say most of this is simply opinion.  While my opinions are gathered from 20+ years of gaming and what facts I've gathered, it's still opinion.

Ever played a game and thought, "Man, they were so close to nailing this one" or "I see what they were trying to do, but they failed big time"?  I do it fairly often, and I've come up with a number of reasons why I think it happens.

• Development time table - Let's take Iron Man for the PS3/360 for example.  This game should have at least been decent, right?  I mean there's more than enough to draw from to make a fairly solid Iron Man game.  You've got the protagonist, which is basically a moving weapon, and several factions/villains for him to take down.  Why did it suck?  Well, there's a lot of reasons probably, but a big one is the fact that the game had to come out May 2nd, the same day as the film.  That means around mid-January they had to stop retooling and refining gameplay and just start buttoning up all the bugs, leaving it with a half-finished feel.
  
• Development team size - As a general rule of thumb, don't give an epic-sized game to a small development team.  Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 should have been bigger and badder in every way than MUA1.  Trouble is you're trying to throw Vicarious Visions up against Raven Software, one of the biggest and best in the business.  Of course you're going to fail.  No matter how good your game is, you just don't have the manpower to make it good enough.
  
• Sequels MUST be bigger, badder - Again, let's cite MUA2.  MUA1 had 23 characters on old consoles, 25 on new ones, and 33 with DLC.  It also had four costumes per character.  Shouldn't it go without saying that MUA2 should have had at least 30 characters and at least 4 costumes each?  Come on, don't take features away for the sake of "streamlining the game"  (a cop out they used all the time in interviews).
  
• Rotate your testers - As a web developer, I realize the value in testing.  But as much as we internally test the product, we also know it's bugs and qwerks, and we get used to them.  The web site then has to change because we and our testers had become used to the way it was during development -- but it wasn't at all what the end user needs.  I'll use Star Wars: Clone Wars: Republic Heroes as an example.  The platforming was something that worked in theory, but everyone testing probably got used to the bugs that made you fall to your death.  So they either learned to control the game better or they discounted them as not being a big deal.  The end result led to tons of folks feeling like the game's platforming was stupidly difficult, and that the 'auto lock' system to jump from platform to platform was broken.  If they had a fresh set of eyes and hands on the game every three or four months then they would have realized how broken that system was and would have fixed it.
  
• No support - There's no excuse for a game locking up or having major bugs.  The PC is harder to account for given so many different kinds of hardware, so that's mildly excusable.  But to have a console game lock up (and in the case of the PS3/360 never get patched) is inexcusable.  Yeah, you can't patch any console game but the PS3/360, but you CAN patch it on there, so do it.  Games that were otherwise decent get shelved because friends tell friends that the game's got too many bugs to play through it.  Same goes for DLC.  Spider-Man: Web of Shadows (which incidentally had a small number of these kinds of  bugs) had extra costumes on the Wii.  That's fine.  I get it.  Dumbed down graphics require something extra to be added to increase sales.  But the core game is 100% the same on PS3/360/Wii/PC.  Why not create a DLC pack for the PS3/360 that comes with the costumes previously exclusive to the Wii?  I loved playing through the game, but it would have been even better if I could have other costumes (being a big Marvel comics fan).
  
• Drama - Enter Modern Warfare 2.  Everything that surrounds this game is drama.  The controversy involving some of the missions, the over-publicized issues between Infinity Ward and Activision (as seen HERE), heck even the drama over having P2P-only multiplayer on the PC.  All that drama soured me to the game even before I played it.  I then played through past the airport mission (which disgusts me, by the way.  What does it serve the game to add that?) and a bit of multiplayer, then I returned the game to the rental store and will never look back.  Drama just makes gamers get tired of a game.  I'd say a year from now all but the hardcore MW2 players will be back to Halo, Battlefield, or will have moved on to some other game.

[LX - Rampage]

You know, nowadays, games are shorter, and that's the biggest problem for me. Great example is GTA IV. I mean, I played through GTA SA in about 150 hours overall, but for GTA IV, it was only 32 hours. Plus, I heard, that the newest Splinter Cell game will be only 5 hours gameplay in Single-Player. In a game like that, well it's sad.

[Dihan]

I don't really mind games being shorter. When you get older and have less time then games that take less time to complete are a lot better. It's better to be able to play through a 30-40 hour game in a few weeks than slave through a 70+ game and then lose interest.

Also, another thing:

• Hype - Games where the developers either hype the game up so much that it becomes a let down or they promise too much. Spore, MUA2 and pretty much any game that gets the fans drooling like a rabid hyena that has just picked the scent of a freshly skilled zebra. A particular game designer comes to mind though; Peter Molyneux, the man who brought us the likes of Black and White 1 and 2 and Fable 1, 2, and the soon to be released 3. He has a tendency to promise things that are pretty much unrealistic. When his games are released they are disappointing and then he has to make an official apology. Every time.

[Nowhere Man]

so true. take the case of fable 1. It is indeed a great game, but the hype was so huge that I thought I'd have a mini virtual me that does everything I do. had they promoted the game the right way i still would have gotten it and wouldn't be dissapointed. it's like avatar. it's a fun movie but there's such a hype that when we left the theater me and my family were trashing the movie to no end.

[TEGC Rocco]

I'd say a year from now all but the hardcore MW2 players will be back to Halo, Battlefield, or will have moved on to some other game.

I agree I used to play Modern Warfare 2 but then it does get boring with all the drama. Halo 3 is better.

[BLaw]

    * Customization options - Games nowadays have a lot of customizations. Good ones, though. But there's ALWAYS and I repeat ALLLLWAAAYS one or more options left out which should have been there. And I'm keeping it Marvel: XML2 had customization limited to gear slots. MUA1 had customization limited to costume passives and 1 gear slot. MUA2 had medals. Wait what? Medals? Yeah, strange eh?
It's a common mistake made by many game developers (All in my opinion): Never leave customization options out. NEVER. Unless it got a 80% thumbs down on the net, where most gamers are lurking in the shadows and voting for stuff.

Another example is Medal of Honor Allied Assault's expansion packs. A common feature in the main MOHAA is leaning while walking. All pro's do it there, and gives a more tense battle. In the expansion packs it was removed, leaving players with "let me sit here and then lean".

[fenrir4life]

Here's another one: Fake difficulty.  Not terrible in the marvel games, but any game where the camera is a bigger obstacle than any given boss is more or less doomed to craphood.  Sonic games, I'm lookin' at you.  Basically, anywhere that flaws in the system pose a larger obstacle than the actual in-game challenges.