Why Can't I... Skip Ahead In Games?
There was a comment made by comedian Adam Carolla, many years ago, during an episode of the American late-night radio programme Loveline. He had been given an Xbox 360, because celebrities get given stuff like that, and decided he'd buy a game for it. One which involved fighting in the Second World War in some [...]
Author: John Walker Category: RockPaperShotgun feature skipping ahead why can't I Publish Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 10:11:36 +0000
There was a comment made by comedian Adam Carolla, many years ago, during an episode of the American late-night radio programme Loveline. He had been given an Xbox 360, because celebrities get given stuff like that, and decided he'd buy a game for it. One which involved fighting in the Second World War in some capacity. It interested him as a fan of History Channel documentaries on the subject, and he liked the idea of recreating classic battles. But when he tried to play he couldn't get out of the opening area.
This isn't a comment on gaming inaccessibility, or how cackhanded Carolla must be, but rather it's about something he said after this. He said, "Where's the button that lets me just skip to the next level?"
Skipping levels in games wouldn't really be a problem so long as you would only have the tools available (unlocked) from previous completed levels. Lets say you skipped to the last level in RA3 soviet campaign - you would only have the units available to you at point where you stopped playing progressively and decided to skip.
On one hand it feels wrong to offer people an easy way through a game. It cheapens the experience for everyone; the people who 'cheat' don't get the full achievement of doing it properly, and the ones who don't feel as though they've done the game the hard way for no extra advantage.
However, I've encountered the problem before where I've hit a point I just couldn't get past, and missed half the game because of it. For ages I had Diablo 2 on my laptop, and I was stuck on a boss fight. For whatever reason I'd gimped my character and just got beasted by these three guys every single time I tried it. I'd gone back and levelled up a few times by grinding the last few maps again and again, and still I kept getting pasted. In the end I gave up. Luckily I'd already played and beaten the game once.
Maybe a nice inbetween ground would be (and I think I've seen it before) to unlock a skip option after a certain number of unsuccessful attempts at something.
Half Life 2 did it well, unlocking the option to skip to a level once you'd completed it, meaning that once you'd got all the way to the citadel, if you wanted to start a fresh game from Nova Prospekt, you could.
I don't think a "skip level' would work in most modern games, what with the ever popular ditching of the tutorial stage in favour of letting the player learn as they progress through the levels. What's to stop someone jabbing the skip level button 3 times then complaining that the game is too hard - blaming the game and the developers for their own haste?
Skipping levels/sections would be damaging for many games for many reasons. But I'm sure there have been games which help the player out if they're obviously stuck. If they are have died at a particular point several times it either makes it a lot easier or does it for you. I'm fairly certain one of the Broken Sword games helped me when I was spazzing.
Something I liked in Mirrors Edge was that if you die at the same point repeatedly they remove the enemies to make it easier. I don't think that would work in all games though, if it happpened in games like half life I'd feel like I'd cheated.
Why Can't I... Skip Ahead In Games?
