🚀 go-pugleaf

> [Unreal2] sucked because it was a film - one long interactive cutscene..
and not a
> game - the greatest games ever created don't have narrative.. ( tetris for
> example )
> the narrative was so strong that they focused on the artwork rather than
the
> gameplay

    This is a good criticism.  There basically is not enough for the player
to do, not enough freedom for exploration, and its too linear, with little
environmental interaction.  The StarTrek EliteForce1 game struck me as
exactly the same type of game.

    Its a hard problem.  As an outsider to how game production proceeds, I
can only imagine that individual workers get so lost in the details that
overall goals, desires for gameplay get lost, while the executive producers
set their sights too low, and tell individual workers to make all-too-linear
levels, which then are attached to one another like C++ code segments.

    Its certainly easier to partition the gameplay into straightforward
video/linear-mission sections, but an experienced player quickly sees this
for what it is and is disappointed.

    More effort needs to be put into integrating individual levels into an
overall scheme, and interweaving the missions so they are less obviously
separate entities and flow into one another.  I'm thinking here of
SystemShock1 and SS2, where you had separate missions, but missions which
occurred within a connected space and which reinforced the player's
immersion.  Unreal2's missions were presented as completely separate worlds,
and were so short as to be perceived by players as disjointed, which
decreases immersion.

    Another approach is to have missions in separate environments (with
common elements, like sound and basic architecture elements), but which are
large and rich enough that the player has time to lose him/herself in the
individual missions and regard each mission as a worthy goal in itself.  I'm
thinking of the Thief games and DeusEx as examples here.

    I believe the Unreal2 engine is a magnificent achievement, and hats off
to Sweeney and the other brilliant developers.  I do not think the engine
has been utilized properly to date.  The original Unreal1 had more
environmental interaction, atmosphere, and storyline than its sequel did,
what, several years later ?

rms