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August 2003
A
CHAT WITH THE CRITICS
 Richard
Aihoshi
Editor In Chief
IGN Vault Network
What's the biggest improvement you've seen in game
development over the past year?
Within the segments of the industry that comprise my
focus, the first significant improvement that comes to
mind is in the overall quality level of the games,
covering both gameplay and QA. And, happily, the trend
has been positive for the past few years now.
What still needs to be improved?
The answer to this question can depend on the goals
under consideration at the time. Without a lot of
context, a few things that come to mind are less complex
interfaces, shallower learning curves in general, less
feature creep, and less length for the sake of length.
What was the best "sleeper" game of the past year and
what made it stand out?
Vault Network covers the PC RPG and action genres.
In the former, Larian Studios' Divine Divinity
was our sleeper of the year for 2002. It fit the classic
definition - a very good game that relatively few people
had heard about before its release. Some notable
features and elements included its music, an expansive
and highly interactive gameworld, and an interesting
skill-based character development system.
As for PC action, we went with America's Army:
Operations, a very good squad-based tactical action
title that was completely unheard of until just a few
months before it was released. That it was developed by
the US Army and that it was given away for free only
served to reinforce it as our selection.
Who, in your opinion, are consistently the best game
developers and what makes them so?
While it's something of a generalization, my opinion is
that the best developers, whether studios or
individuals, tend to be the ones that recognize their
core competencies and build their games so as to reflect
and emphasize them.
If you could give game developers 3 tips that
might help their games receive more critical-acclaim,
what would they be?
In line with my answer to the previous question, one
thing is to recognize and emphasize the strengths that
can differentiate their games instead of trying to do
too much. It may seem like common sense for a team to
focus (relatively, not exclusively) on what it does
best. In reality, however, many don't, at least not very
well. Instead, they fall victim to feature creep,
over-estimate their abilities, etc.
Another is to make sure the expectations for the game
are kept as realistic as possible. The higher the
expectations, the harder it is to meet them. There are
two potential pitfalls to be avoided here. One is
over-stating in the hope of building "buzz". The other,
which can overlap, is over-stating due to
over-confidence. In either case, ultimately delivering
less than what the audience thinks it was promised is a
sure way to generate disapproval rather than acclaim.
A third thing is to deliver a consistent experience.
It's not very difficult to think of games that had, say,
20 hours of really good gameplay plus another 20 that
may have been were okay but were not up to the same
standard. Overall, these games would have been better
without some or all of the latter 20; i.e. if they had
been shorter (within reason) but more consistent. The
same can be said of maps, missions, quests, et al. More
is only better if the quality level is the same.
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A Chat with the Critics
Direct Link Index:
Richard
Aihoshi
Editor In Chief
IGN Vault Network
Wagner
James Au
Writer/Designer
Embedded Journalist
Jim "Ripclaw"
Broach
CEO
Gamer's Pulse Magazine
Eric
Butcher
Editor
punchbutton
Steven
"Westlake" Carter
Reviewer
Game
Over Online Magazine Computer Games Magazine
Victor
Godinez
Staff Writer/Game Reviewer
The Dallas Morning News
Tricia "Kazi
Wren" Harris
Freelance
Dave
"Fargo" Kosak
Director of Publishing and Community
GameSpy Industries
Phil
LaRose
PC Game Guy
St. Paul Pioneer Press/
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Chuck
Osborn
Senior Editor, Features
PC Gamer |
