I just hate how it breaks the flow of gameplay.
ALL CREATURE WILL DIE AND ALL THE THINGS WILL BE BROKEN. THAT'S THE LAW OF SAMURAI.That's also true. Oblivion's minigames scream "here we go again", because once you picked a lock, you've picked them all.
I will say that I actually kinda agree with you on Oblivion's lockpicking (Very Hard doors were, well, Very Hard, but even then with practice you could do it and it wasn't hard for me to build up a backlog of lockpicks in the hundreds anyhow), but I actually liked the Fallout 3/NV way of "You need this much skill, otherwise you can't try at all, and then you have to pick the lock.
That's just my opinion, though.
"The fact that your food can be made into makeshift bombs alarms the Hell out of me, Scrye." - CharlatanNo need for that, Litis. As it happens I actually agree with him here; I'd rather have these things decided by my character's skill, not mine.
There's a reason things are often made into minigames. Stuff like lockpicking and hacking are boring without minigames.
Lockpicking isn't meant to be exciting in and of itself; it's what's behind the lock i'm after. The minigame just delays it.
Blame Donkey Kong 64. No, you can't have your banana, you have to do a stupid minigame first.
edit:blame everyone who didn't play Donkey Kong 64 but went on to develop games and repeated its mistakes.
The worst Lock Picking Minigame was probably Eternal Darkness but in that case, it was intentional. They forced you to take your eyes away from your surroundings after depriving you of your safe house and it worked too well!
edited 24th Aug '11 3:42:10 PM by Cider
Modified Ura-nage, Torture RackOddly I don't mind it in DK 64. Maybe just because it was one of my first games ever. I dunno.
Indeed, I was just thinking of the same thing with DX:HR's hacking minigame. I really can't think of one I liked after more than one hack/lockpick. I like how VTMB did both of those things (I am going to mention it in every thread because it is the direction I wish RP Gs went in... minus the incomplete and buggy part).
Oddly enough I think Fallout 3 had the least terrible hacking/lockpicking minigames, though I still got tired and resorted to force lock+quick load.
At least in Oblivion lockpicking becomes irrelevant after Getting the Skeleton Key
Apocalypse: Dirge Of Swans.The original deus ex's approach is my favourite here. Lockpicking and hacking requires resources- higher character skill means you can hack things with less resources. Low character skills will barely be able to hack a lot of the more important stuff because there simply aren't enough resources.
On top of that, using a single resource takes time and it's in real time rather than some alternate dimension where everyone sits still until you've finished hacking. So a higher character skill will be a lot more helpful as less resources= less time= less likely for enemies to spot you and kill you/raise the alarm.
I will say though, that the concept isn't completely irredeemable. Just cause a character has the skill shouldn't mean he auto unlocks everything. A character with a high enough combat skill doesn't result in everyone around him autodying cause his skill is enough- that's just stupid. The difference is that combat is an integral part of gameplay while these minigames are afterthoughts.
Some video games have mini games so good they qualify for Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer. Some which I've really liked:
- Fly swatting in Mario Paint.
- The monster betting game in Dragon Quest 3. It's mostly luck, though it helps to know the relative strengths of monsters.
- Competitive Mario Bros mode in Super Mario 3.
- Spending too much time on relationships in Harvest Moon Back to Nature, and Thousand Arms. Some relationship-building was necessary in both games, but a player could spend hours with unimportant NPCs.
- The bread race in Tokimeki Memorial Girls Side DS 1-2. The game includes some other mini games, some of which were too short (pillow fighting), and others that I did not enjoy (making chocolate).
Alpha Protocol lets you take the easy way out by using an EMP.
"Hipsters: the most dangerous gang in the US." - Pacific MackerelDepends on the minigame. While lockpicking is alright, hacking in Fallout 3 and New Vegas is very annoying.
I like the ones of Alpha Protocol, though.
People aren't as awful as the internet makes them out to be.Yeah, Triple Triad was the best part about FFVIII. Chocobo Hot & Cold in FFIX was great too. Too bad pretty much every other FF minigame has sucked.
Welcome to th:|Well, YMMV with Blitzball. I liked it, personally.
Switch FC code: SW-4420-1809-1805My previous post was in jest, so whatever.
Minigames won't be going anywhere any time soon because they satiate the developers' ever growing itch for making games more "cinematic" and "realistic". As for me, I think minigames are a bad thing only when they either are absolutely unskippable or weren't designed with the player getting bored with them sooner or later in mind. Or both, obviously.
"I am a minigame because you're trying to hack a computer. You cannot bypass me because this is an interactive bit to make the game feel more dramatic, like a movie. Soon your time for hacking the computer will run out... time's up."
The only minigame I can remember liking was Biochock's.
The hacking minigame in BioShock 2 was more fun than the first game's at the expense of in-universe realism, I think.
Is anyone else disapointed by the trend of making everything a minigame? Lockpicking? Mini game! Talking? Minigame! Hacking? Minigame! Why do they do this?
It mostly started with the 360/PS 3 era, though I would be lying if I said it wasn't in the PS 2/GCN/Xbox era.
I dislike this trend because
Thoughts.
edited 24th Aug '11 1:54:17 PM by deuxhero