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Monday, August 21, 2006

Area 52 Thoughts

Area 51 was a decent FPS, so it'll be interesting to see what direction Area 52 will go. We can only hope David Duchovny will make a return appearance.
-- Area 51 sequel in the works for next-gen

I've played through a bit of Area 51, before life turned to chaos and the gnashing of metal. Couple thoughts on a potential sequel:

Dear god don't get Duchovny
I can only hope Joystiq is being sarcastic there. Duchovny should be banned from all voice acting gigs after his performance on this game and XIII. If you want a dry, robotic voice devoid of emotion or inflection, a Mac can do that for free. Only the English acting on Dynasty Warriors compares to him. It's really that bad.

Beef up the squad mechanics
One thing about Area 51 - it rewards your cowardice. Because your squadmates (when present) are largely invincible, it's easy to let them take the brunt of the fighting. Occasionally almost all of the fighting. Instead of this, make the squaddies vulnerable and add in a dynamic of having to keep them alive. Yes, this is hard in the modern day game because nobody likes the possible situation of not being able to continue because they've lost all their squad - but it would make for a far better game.

And of course - online and split screen coop. Should be a given.

Improve on the whole "hybrid" idea
Spoiler alert. Beep. Beep. Beep. OK. Ready? First - if I get infected by this virus, why am I still getting attacked by all these mutants? They don't attack each other. Plus, once "cured" the hybrid powers feel more like a tack-on than anything else. If you're going to twist the player role, do it all the way. And if you're going to do augments/powers/whatever ... treat them with the same loving care you would a new weapon in the game. Think Psi-Ops or the first AvP.

Diversify
Everything. The scenery, the monsters, etc. When one room feels like just another warehouse and gee ... that mutant has a gun and stuff - it just makes the ride repetitive.



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2 comments:

Unknown said...

Duchovny was great in XII. I still use it to cure insomnia.

Josh said...

The line that killed my was when one character was getting ambushed by like 300 mutant gorillas (or something quite similar) and David's line goes something like:

"Oh no. Watch out. Behind you. No. ooooo."

He was great in X-Files, but he proves the theory that not every actor is a voice actor.