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Post by sps1000 on Apr 22, 2005 14:43:53 GMT
What makes a good level? Is it balance, difficulty, story elements, atmosphere, a combination or is it something else? What game has the best level design? Your thoughts?
I personally feel it's a mixture of all the things, and the fact that I don't have to go back to search for something helps. The Hexen games frustrated the heck outta me because it seemed you never went forward but were always going back to get another item or flip another switch, there were a couple times when I wanted to throw the computer out of the window the hub based levels frustrated me enough.
As for best level design, nothing beats the randomity of the levels in the Diablo series. You're never playing the same game twice.
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Post by Elliot Kane on Apr 22, 2005 15:34:23 GMT
Good question, SPS I'd say atmosphere was really important, especially in 1st/3rd person games, but the most important element, for me, is the degree of challenge - which needs to make me work for it without being utterly impossible. A level which furthers the story and is not just one long round of hitting things is also important (Except in RTS games, of course ). Overall best level design, IMO, goes to Tomb Raider: Last Revelation. There are a couple of levels that are a pig to get through, but overall it's a really well thought out and very balanced game. Second place I would give to Durlag's Tower from Baldur's Gate: Tales Of The Sword Coast. It trips up a bit by having FAR too much treasure for the group to have any chance of carrying it all (And no possibility of trips to and fro, however tedious), but that's the only fault in an otherwise excellent & very atmospheric dungeon.
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Post by sps1000 on Apr 22, 2005 19:09:33 GMT
I should also give props to Half-Life. The levels were pretty amazing and they felt natural for the most part well except for the Xen part at the end.
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Post by mysterd on Jul 10, 2005 4:35:48 GMT
I should also give props to Half-Life. The levels were pretty amazing and they felt natural for the most part well except for the Xen part at the end. The Strider battle in the main plaza of City 17 was amazing.
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Post by mysterd on Jul 10, 2005 4:51:51 GMT
What makes a good level? Is it balance, difficulty, story elements, atmosphere, a combination or is it something else? What game has the best level design? Your thoughts? I personally feel it's a mixture of all the things, and the fact that I don't have to go back to search for something helps. The Hexen games frustrated the heck outta me because it seemed you never went forward but were always going back to get another item or flip another switch, there were a couple times when I wanted to throw the computer out of the window the hub based levels frustrated me enough. As for best level design, nothing beats the randomity of the levels in the Diablo series. You're never playing the same game twice. I'm not big on a game giving us random levels. They can get quite repetitive b/c the missions lack often the depth that can be found in missions a design team hand-crafted -- well, computer-crafted, but you get my point. Take Starlancer. The whole game consisted of awesome hand-crafted missions. But, the game was quite linear. Take its sequel, Freelancer -- which is an open-ended game. Freelancer has an interesting concept. Many missions were randomly generated and you select what ones to pick -- the missions were often kill this, defend this, rescue this item, or something of that nature. You're out to make $ as a mercenary freelance pilot, so you need $, so you have to have good equipment for the "main story" missions. You were to do so many of these missions, then the game would open up a for you to take on a deep "main story" missions that were -- well, deep and quite scripted. Then, the game would give you more randoms to do for a while or sometimes might have some back-to-back "main story" missions. And oh yeah -- when not doing a "main story" mission, you're free to roam the galaxy, out in space. Yes, there are factions, so there is a Faction system so depending on what missions you do, you can piss off, be neutral, or be good friends w/ Factions. But none of Freelancer's random missions were as fun as the planned missions in the game. Sure, some were quire fun, but the handcrafted missions by the design team often had lots of plot elements, action elements, surprises and twists, interesting level design, and multiple objectives to perform in missions. Freelancer got something right: it had a good mix of having random missions and deeply hand-crafted missions.
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Post by sps1000 on Jul 10, 2005 11:51:06 GMT
I'm big on atmosphere in games also. Again take the Half-Life series. It felt like you were really walking through real-life areas. Duke Nukem 3d also gets atmosphere points.
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Post by mysterd on Jul 10, 2005 16:43:25 GMT
Some of the best atmosphere I've been in, from NPC's on schedules and whatnot, are Gothic series.
HL2 had a lot of atmosphere in the beginning of City 17.
Great graphics in HL2.
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