“Unnecessary options” does not mean “options I do not like.” And, who knows, maybe someone else doesn’t find the micro-bombs so distracting maybe someone actually prefers them. One weapon, the Guided Micro-bombs, goes to such extreme that I actually lose track of my ship (powered up, it launches twenty-four smoke-trailed spheres per second, and all of them lock on, track their separate targets, and detonate.) But that’s okay because Tyrian provides plenty of other less distracting choices with plenty of other cool properties to choose from. ” as I annihilate entire armadas and alien civilizations. And I love how every tap of the trigger floods the screen with pure uncut firepower in the final episodes, inspiring me to quote Robert Oppenheimer “now I am become death. Sounds like a lot, and it is, but all the guns and most sidekicks fire when you push one button so the vast arsenal doesn’t weigh the game down with clunky complex controls there’s just a lot more ammunition flying around. In either mode, you get a ship equipped with armor, recharging shields, a front cannon, a rear cannon, and two sidekicks (additional weapons that hover on either side of your vessel). Full Game, on the other hand, offers an evolving story and lets the player pick and choose ship upgrades at their leisure between missions in addition to granting them the ability to save and come back later for the player who wants to custom build their spacecraft or just kill fifteen minutes waiting for the pizza to arrive. The latter, naturally, plays like the full blown cabinet classics such as Raiden and 1941: Counter Attack where all power ups and upgrades appear in the missions after destroying certain enemies, providing an uninterrupted experience for those wanting to see how far they can get on a set number of lives. And before we even get into the actual gameplay, Tyrian offers meaningful options: Full Game or Arcade Mode. The player takes control of a space ship flying over planets, asteroids, and through outer space in this futuristic sci-fi themed vertical-scrolling shooter. And few games demonstrate these principles better than one of my all time favorites: Tyrian. The other major factor to taming the complexities of multiple options is to implement an intuitive interface that simplifies the choices. How does a developer strike this balance? Well, many factors play a role, but cutting unnecessary choices will help the same way Strunk & White’s Elements of Style calls for any self-respecting author to eliminate unnecessary words from their prose-if it doesn’t add anything in any significant way, then it doesn’t need to be there. So the trick is to give players the most options while maintaining maximum simplicity. I return again and again to a common theme in my reviews: that video games are about options however options lead to complexity, and while complexity is not inherently bad, it can lead to dead time in the form of learning curves, arbitrary barriers, or maintenance. While both Arcade and Full Game Modes have their respective ways of upgrading weapons, these chrome capsules will immediately advance either the front or rear cannon by one step.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |