Colin StevensIs Left 4 Dead Creating Brainless Gamers?
September 1st 2008 07:11
It is well established that this generation of gaming platforms are for different gamers. The Xbox was for your online community gamer, Playstation for your Asian style games and Nintendo for casual gamers. And then there was PC. The venerable gaming platform has suffered from a complex recently, with analysts predicting everything from its death by console in the imminent future, to it being the only platform available within a console generation. With the latest games requiring costly upgrades, only the MMO and solitaire gamers seem to have stuck by their trusty, clunky boxes. The most worrying thing about consoles taking more of our gaming time is the concessions being made for the convenience of the controller. It started within strategy games, the RTS scene. Different aspects had to be compromised in many peoples eyes to allow for the lack of hotkeys and mouse. And though a few RTS titles have managed to please both sides of the fence, the reality is that a dozen odd buttons cannot replace a keyboard.
Now there is Left 4 Dead. The hype surrounding the title has us all chomping at the bit to get our hands on it co-op zombie slaying goodness. For most people, that will be on console. But there will be some major gameplay altering changes that are being made to cater for the lack of the movement speed that you can reasonably get out of analogue sticks. It has gone as far as to affect the AI in the game, and here is the crux of the matter. Zombies in the console version will be less likely to attack from behind, but rather assist the player by preferring a frontal assault. These are zombies. They want to chew on your brain like beef jerky. Queuing up because you can't turn around in time shouldn't be in their undead minds. Not only that, but a moderate level of auto-aim will be incorporated, further nursing the player.
All gamers should fear these changes. We already know that games are becoming simpler to cater for casual gamers, and now with a distinct differentiation between the platforms, PC gamers will rightfully be able to claim that they are the hardest-core gamers around.
| 53 |
| Vote |
Shared on
Subscribe to this blog
