Here is the The Little Gaming Blog's first design-focused post (hopefully it's the first of many). For my initial foray into design discussions, I decided to start out with two games that have provided me with hours upon hours of entertainment: Fallout 3, and Fallout: New Vegas. I'm going to cover them as one collective game because: both are run on the same engine, and both are very similar outside of their respective storylines (and the few changes/additions that came with New Vegas). Without further ado, let's get started.
VATS: The VATS system (Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System, for all the non-nerds out there) allows the player to momentarily pause gameplay to aim at specific parts of a target's body with whatever weapon is in hand. Once the shots are fired, the player watches the action unfold at almost bullet-time speed (that's "slow motion," for those of you that don't know). This typically ends in more accurate attacks and the occasional glorious dismemberment.
Why this was added to the game: You might not know this, but shooter fans and RPG fans do not always overlap. You're not going to find a lot of hardcore Counter Strike players lining up to play Skyrim, just like you're not going to find a bunch of dudes dressed up as Cloud Strife playing Modern Warfare 3 at MLG. Understanding this is the key to understanding why VATS was added to the game: it keeps the game from feeling like a pure shooter. Sure, there are other reasons for it being there, but without VATS, the Fallout games would look more like Half-Life than Fallout. Aside from that, the devs also ensured the use of VATS by attaching perks and abilities to it, as well as adding additional functionality as a reward for using the system. Giving players a reason to use a beneficial (but largely optional) system is always a sign of good design.
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| Why go for the 8-ball in the corner pocket when you can go for a .38 in the eye socket? |
Fast Travel: Fallout's fast travel system allows the player to instantly travel to a location already discovered on the map, as long as the player is not in combat or carrying too much weight.
Why this was added to the game: While the designers want the players to see the massive world they've created, there's no need for players to travel through the same empty areas for 30 minutes every time they want to visit Megaton. Visiting each area once was enough for the developers to allow you to teleport there afterwards. There's also the possibility that this was added by request of the QA team, after they were exhausted from repeatedly walking across the vast, mostly barren landscape. In contrast, pay-to-play MMOs do not offer this type of fast travel because they want you to keep playing the MMO as much as possible. Since players feel the need to play MORE when they are paying for their time, MMOs can get away with this. Console games are generally expected to offer shortcut systems to cut down on monotonous gameplay, because players are NOT paying for their time. Therefore, the fast travel system is not necessarily good design as much as it's expected design. Regardless, it's still a nice addition to the game.
Companions: I'm going to assume that everyone reading this post has at least a little familiarity with the games in question. However, if you're not very knowledgeable about the titles, just know that you can recruit companions during your playthrough. These companions follow you around, fight with you, and carry items.
Why this was added to the game: It gets lonely in the desert! No, seriously, that's one of the main reasons as to why they were added, outside of their attachment to the alignment system. It's much more comforting to have a companion on your journey, even if it's a giant, yellow, muscle-bound mutant with a penchant for murder (and this is one of the "good" alignment characters, go figure). The designers also needed to find a few more things to link to the game's alignment system, so that it had value (something that Fable has never seemed to understand). This comes in the form of alignment-specific buddies that will turn you down if you're not their preferred flavor of evil or wholesome. The companions have their own set of glitches and problems (especially in New Vegas), but they're still a welcome addition to the game - when they're not running into a group of 20 enemies and getting themselves vaporized or shot to smithereens in the process. As a parting gift, your "friend" will also turn the attention of every angry thing within a 5 mile radius onto you, usually guaranteeing you'll be meeting your wasteland companion at the pearly gates in short order.
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| This is Lily, a Fallout: New Vegas companion. She says that she's stealthy. I'll just take her word for it. |
Quests: The quests in the Fallout games do an excellent job of giving you extra incentives to explore a large portion of the wasteland around you. The designers managed to make the quests feel pretty different from one another, even if you're repeating similar actions. The key to this is keeping the motivations fresh while throwing in a variety of characters and activities to keep the player from thinking "Oh great, another fetch quest." Oftentimes the player will also be rewarded with a variety of items upon embarking on and finishing quests, making the whole ordeal more than worth their time. Quests that don't feel repetitive and monotonous for anyone but the most jaded of all gamers? Good design.
Combat: The sound and visual effects combine to give the combat system an almost-tangible "substance." You get a nice 'crunch' when connecting with a melee weapon, and the big fleshy explosions resulting from gunfire definitely feel satisfying when they happen (not in the psychopathic sense, but in the sense that they keep the combat from being mundane). While it can get a bit gory, it's more on the outrageous side of the gore spectrum (think Kill Bill or almost any anime, where blood/flesh sprays everywhere for no reason), which keeps it from being gross to all but the most squeamish of people. This 'crunchy combat' is an example of good design, because it keeps repetitive actions from feeling like a chore. Yes, you're still doing the same basic actions over and over, but if it doesn't feel like you're toiling through tedium, then the developers have done something right.
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| This is not an example of combat. This is what happens when a Super Mutant divides by zero. |
Customization: This is a focal point of the Fallout games. Everything about your character is almost entirely customizable, down to the way they look. You pick your core traits, stats, perks, and even your hairstyle. They took this one step further in New Vegas by allowing you to customize your weapons with a variety of add-ons as well. This goes without saying, but everyone loves customization in their games. Customization is the foundation upon which the Call of Duty franchise built their recent empire, and it is the very reason that we see RPG elements popping up in nearly every single genre nowadays. The idea of RPGs is to play a role, and what better way to play a role than determining that role yourself and creating your character in such as a way as to best accomplish the goals of his/her role? This is what made the original Dungeons and Dragons such a draw, before it became a punchline for frat boys. However, RPGs have spoiled us over the years, so a good customization system also falls under the umbrella of "expected design."
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| "Well this is cool and all, but now it's too big to keep in the waist of my sweatpants." - Plaxico Burress |
World: The worlds in the Fallout games do a solid job of rewarding exploration. While the landscape is always expansive and full of things that want to kill you, you know that the random gas station on the horizon will probably have something cool in it, because it's so far off the beaten path. While the game's quests show you most of the important places on the map, it's nice that you can wander off on your own and still find awesome things here and there. There are also tons of little Easter Eggs to be found (such as the alien weaponry in Fallout 3), most of which also come with awesome items. If your friends are casually talking about a Fallout game, it's always fun when you can tell them about something that none of them have heard of, simply because you happened across an event in some random corner of the map.
Another thing that showcases good design is the world's environmental storytelling. If none of you know what environmental storytelling is, go ahead and look it up, I'll wait. Are you back yet? Good, because I'm going to tell you what it is either way. You know when you get a new game and you rifle through the intro sequence so you can get right to the gameplay? Environmental storytelling is what allows you to do that and still have a good sense of what is going on in the world. The D.C. ruins in Fallout 3 are a good example of this. As soon as you see those landscapes, you have an excellent idea of what's going on and/or what happened. This is especially effective with easily recognizable landmarks (such as the Washington Monument and the Capitol Building). When a structure commonly seen in postcards is barely standing, you know some serious stuff went down.
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| Contrary to what you might believe, this is D.C. before the nuclear apocalypse. |
Fallout 3 Subway Labyrinth: This is probably one of the few examples of bad design that the games have to offer. I personally believe that this was mostly the unintentional result of recycling graphics, but the subways in Fallout 3 were the bane of many gamers. While some people had no problem with these underground mazes (and by some people, I mean myself), the vast majority of people that I've spoken with have cited the subway system as the most frustrating thing in the game. While it did not pose as big of a problem for yours truly, there were times when even I was lost in depths of post apocalyptic D.C. The main reason for this, as mentioned before, is that the developers recycled many of the subway pathways. What does this result in? Every single subway looks nearly identical, right down to the enemies found within (almost exclusively Ghouls). Navigating the subways was also required in order to progress deep into the D.C. ruins. In most cases, you could follow compass directions to find the exit you need, but this was not always the case. There were times when the recycled tunnels would lead you somewhere that was not only different from your intended destination, but also extremely dangerous. You would think that the game's "recommended path" feature on the Pip-boy map would help with this problem, but it doesn't. There were times when the path would clearly dictate where you needed to go, but there were also other times when the game wouldn't show you any path at all. The game's main quests usually came with a route on the map, but if you're doing anything else (or exploring on your own), then good luck to you - your Pip-boy will just give you the proverbial finger and call it a day. Is this bad design? Yes it certainly is, but it was purely accidental (to be fair, 99% of bad design is accidental). Things like this normally get cleaned up during the QA process, but something tells me that either the QA testers memorized the subways long before this became an issue, or the developers simply let this go in order to make deadlines. I'm guessing the latter.
Interactions With Environment/Characters: The two games do a nice job of ensuring that most of your encounters will be full of personality and intrigue. Very rarely do you find a boring character in either game. You can guarantee that if they don't have something interesting to say, they're probably either going to kill you or be killed in a few moments. In the rare event that someone is a generic shell of a meaningless character and they're not blown up on the spot, they will probably sell you items. I can't tell you how many unique encounters I've had during my playthroughs, because whenever I would boot up the game it seemed like even more random events would occur while I was meandering about. A random person ran at me while screaming that I needed to "disarm the bomb" just seconds before exploding in my face (taking out a chunk of my health and nearly killing my dog in the process). This was not a character I had ever encountered, and I had little to no idea where they came from, why they were running around outside, or who armed them with explosives - and it was completely awesome. When you're wandering around a world that genuinely feels "alive," that's yet another sign of solid design.
Closing Thoughts:
I
felt like this was a good exercise in deconstructing a few aspects of
the two games. Admittedly, I could have gone deeper, but I can always
do that in future articles. With regard to the games, both are examples
of conventional RPG design with some awesomely innovative extras thrown
in. As I write more of these, the line between convention and
innovation becomes much easier to see, and that's when things get fun.
Until next time, happy reading!
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