Topic: Gaming Idiosyncrasies

@RogerRoger Nothing wrong with wanting to have some unbridled freelancing fun! 😄 I think I straddle a line between preferring simulation accuracy vs. video game-y approachability. Having just finished R&C Rift Apart I really had a great time with it’s more loose approach to third person shooting. Just aim in the general direction and pull trigger! Or better yet, deploy a small army of fungus minions to shoot for you while you dodge and smash stuff! 😄

But having also recently played FF7R, I can’t help but scoff a little bit at the juxtaposition of realistic animation with a ridiculously large sword that Cloud carries around and wields as if it’s made of fiberglass. When in the throes of the game I’m able to disconnect my rational brain and just enjoy the gaminess of it all, but sometimes it pulls me out of the moment when the physics of the game world don’t make sense. Having played RE3 also recently (a game with a gritty realism to the art style and character movement) there were points that my brain would question “Why can’t I shoot this enemy through the fence?” Or “Why can’t I hop over this pile of garbage to get over to that place I can clearly see over there?” 😅

It probably has a lot to do with presentation. The more hyper-realistic the graphical presentation is, the more we expect the in-game physics and motion to be accurate as well. When a game has a more fanciful presentation then my skeptical mind is turned off to just enjoy the fictional world the game designers have created.

Back to Gran Turismo — for whatever reason, it’s the one racer I’ve stuck with. Kart racers and arcadey racers have never held my interest. It might be the full sim aspects of tuning the wheel camber or stiffening every aspect of the four wheel suspension in order to maximize turning radius and grip; or knowing the exact perfect velocity and entry angle to a turn in order to have maximum exit speed…. But I actually rather think it’s the rpg-like progression system that speaks to me. I like starting out with a Toyota Corolla and working my way up to a McLaren F1 through gradual improvements and investments into my cars and slowly learning how to drive better and better.
It largely why I skipped GT Sport, since it seemed it was going more for the online racing and took away some of the single player license and ‘story’ building, if you can call it that.

I always play camera chasing the car with a controller, but I like first person if I have a wheel. I do find it's easier to judge my position on the road if I can see the entire car.

Hades is full of very smart design decisions. One I think is particularly neat: when opening the codex, which is needed to see your relationship status with the many characters, it will automatically open to the character you’re standing nearest to. I’ve tested it out around the ‘house’ and it’s quite consistent. Not as much in the other realms. This idea of a “smart” menu is something I think could be iterated on further, though there is a part of me that likes the predictability and resultant muscle memory of consistent menu operations.

@Jimmer-jammer I’ve never noticed that before and I’ve played Hades loads and loads. Amazing feature actually thinking about it!

@nessisonett yeah, I’ve seen lots of times in games where you’ll pick up a collectible or something and have a 5 second window where opening the menu will take you to the corresponding page but this is the first time I think I’ve seen proximity be the catalyst. Very neat.