What do you think are the essential features of high-quality games?
You would think by now that game developers would have a canon of information that they could refer to, in order to make sure that the essential features and options are included as part of the games that they create.
Amazingly, even some of the most obvious things are missing in otherwise really solid games. My favorite mech game -- for instance -- doesn't allow the player to skip the rather lengthy intro. IMHO, everything else about it is phenomenal.
So I ask the question in the title of this post. To start things off, here's the beginning of a list.
Ingredients that every good game should have:
- Multiple skill levels.
- Complete sound configuration options (character speech, announcer speech, BGM, sound effects, subtitles, etc...).
- Skippable cut-scenes (with the option to return to any cut scene at any time).
- Multiple save locations. Or if it doesn't allow for user saves then it should have very frequent save points.
- Skippable intro sequences.
- User-customizable controller layouts (not just the two or three canned ones).
- X-Y invert for FPS.
- Analog stick sensitivity adjustment options.
- Graphics display options (HUD on/off, brightness, resolution settings, etc...).
- Text that is readable on mid-sized televisions.
- Optimized loading operations.
- Ability to pause the game at ANY time.
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Originally Posted by Neb6
Mario says "... if you do drugs, you go to hell before you die."
