作者：Andrew Groen

纵观过去几年的游戏，我们可以发现其中很多游戏都因为各种奇怪或未知的原因而包含了老一辈游戏设计师喜好的元素，比如爆炸滚桶以及带着金子与链甲等着玩家打死它们并获取战利品的狼。是的，这些东西很古怪，却广泛分布在8、16、32位体游戏中。但是，当现在开发者已经找到新东西折腾自己时，为什么还要抓着这些早就不相干的设计选择不放呢？

在过去几年，许多设计怪癖比如莫名其妙的爆炸滚桶已经成为许多游戏设计师的心头好，甚至到了大量游戏似乎都依靠它们获得关注的程度。以下7个设计怪癖是我们在游戏中最常见到的，借本文我们不妨吐槽一下开发者为什么这么喜欢它们。

1、续作

为什么开发者们忍不住推出续作？你为什么会愿意在接下来的几年时间里开发“向钱看”且没有灵魂的东西？。因为简单啊！使用与上一款游戏相同的引擎和美术材料，再添加几个角色，一些僵尸，然后就完工了！挣钱了！其实，也不能全怪开发者，毕竟是玩家自己愿意继续购买这些空洞产品。谁还在买《真三国无双》系列？

典型案例：《光晕3：地狱伞兵》

Halo 3 ODST（from hdwpapers）

我们不知道《光晕3：地狱伞兵》的品质如何，但我们确实知道，这款续作只是借前作响当当的名头继续占领市场，为《光晕》系列填补新一季的财政收益。也许它会是一款好游戏，但让我们都现实一点吧：这款游戏是“向钱看”的，它的存在只是为了给《光晕4》暖被窝。

2、大肆宣传

为什么开发者们都爱夸夸其谈？在这个星球上，最爱自掘坟墓的人莫过于喜怒无常的游戏设计师了。这恰恰不是少见之事；无论是Silicon Knights游戏工作室总裁Denis Dyack发表了他的最新长篇演讲，还是Bullfrog工作室的核心人物Peter Molyneux告诉我们他的最新力作将强大到使成年男性承认自己对Milo产生恋童癖，我们都知道，游戏行业不缺说起话来滔滔不绝的家伙。然而，开发者们的嘴动得比他们团队的工作还快，结果必然是使玩家为他们的大肆宣传感到失望和怀疑。

典型案例：Peter Molyneux

“我认为《神鬼寓言1》将是史上最伟大的RPG，它真的是太疯狂了。我可以说它是第二伟大的作品，我可以说它相当棒，我可以说它还不错，但我就是要说它是史上最了不起的RPG。”—-Peter Molyneux于2003年接受采访时说的话

3、类型混搭

为什么开发者们忍不住把游戏类型混搭起来？把两种类型混合成一种称不上什么类型的游戏的游戏开发者，就像半夜饿醒的玩家冲向冰箱，却发现里面什么都没有。开发者称自己的游戏是“每一人称平台冒险MMO”就像是，刚才发现冰箱空空的玩家，于是把厨房里的食物残渣如变质的意大利面、发臭的芥末和过期的能量棒混在一起浇在发酸的小面包上。我们承认，这么玩是……有意思的，但基本上玩过一次就会发誓再也不玩了。

典型案例：《MAG》

每一款游戏都像RTS，但每个小组只有一个人？而这个人对一群军士发号施令，谁在玩RTS/FPS的杂交游戏？然后那些军士又把命令下达给230名士兵，谁在玩纯FPS？是不是也有些像MMO？

4、虚幻引擎3

为什么开发者们都迷信虚幻引擎3？虚幻引擎3几乎能与大预算欧美游戏划上等号，但凡宣称使用了这种引擎就能上新闻头条。开发者们使用它不是因为他们就是想使用它，而是因为使用它就自动保证游戏被不明所以的广大玩家认为“画面上乘”。

典型案例：《诅咒》

自《战争机器》引领游戏机游戏达到“虚幻引擎3级的画面”起，就吸引了大批拥护它那“肮脏、大颗粒、厚重的画面风格”的追随者。《诅咒》就是最典型的信奉者，它模仿《战争机器》的画面风格，但并没有吸收对方的玩法精髓；反而证明了“虚幻引擎3”并不等同于“上乘的画面”，运行这类游戏5分钟你就知道怎么回事了。

5、跑酷

为什么开发者们都爱跑酷？我猜想，在开发《刺客信条》过程的某个时候，开发者们觉得应该用什么方式让活动显得更极限。因为Altair骑BMX自行车显得太傻了，所以他们想到另一种非常适合这位冷酷又狡猾的杀手的极限运动。就这样，跑酷突然间成为游戏的逃生大法，并且从此成为游戏的惯例，无论它显得多么不合理。

典型案例：《恶名昭彰》

严肃地说，为什么要在《恶名昭彰》中设定一种电超能力使Cole那么擅长爬墙？难道开发者就不能想出一些有根有据的变通方案吗？比如像蜘蛛侠那样因为被蜘蛛咬了而获得手指吐丝的能力？

6、帽子、面具和头盔

为什么开发者们这么迷恋帽子、面具和头盔？当开发者把角色的脸藏起来时，总有一套哲学理论来支持自己的行为。他们告诉你，这样会让玩家对角色产生更深的感情，因为一定程度上，玩家认为自己操作的角色就是自己的化身！如果你想知道真相，那么我告诉你，其实是因为他们不想花时间和钱开发精致的脸部动画，但他们又想不到其原因能解释为什么角色的脸在游戏中永远见不着天日。所以，他们把角色的脸藏进帽子、面具或者头盔里，然后就大功告成了。顺便把难做的头发动画也省了。

Assassin’s Creed(from fanpop)

典型案例：Altair（《刺客信条》）

也许，Altair把脸藏在风帽里是为了在人群中不被发现或认出来。但老实说，在人群中，还有什么人比穿着白色长袍、把头捂在帽子里还走得偷偷摸摸的家伙更引人注目的吗？Ubisoft你就承认吧，帽子是为了耍酷的。

7、沙哑的嗓音

为什么开发者喜欢大叔音？为什么所有男性主角除了Nathan Drake（游戏邦注：《神秘海域》的男主角）外说起话来时，声音听起来都像40岁的烟鬼呢？这就是我们所谓的“强迫性感”。是的，《战争机器》中的Marcus Fenix是让人觉得有一种酷酷的感觉，但是，所以任何肌肉发达的人说话都要刚像吃过一嘴烟灰吗？确实，塑造一位形象饱满的经典角色（如《007》系列的James Bond和《星球大战》的Han Solo）是很费功夫的，让大多数开发者感到棘手。

典型案例：Alex Mercer（《虐杀原型》）

到底是出于什么原因，Alex Mercer会有这样一副低沉的男中音？他只是一个喜欢穿帽衫、把脸藏在帽子里并坚信自己正在被当局迫害的家伙。他充其量就是个闹情绪的小孩子嘛。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

The Top 7… trendy game-design crutches

by Andrew Groen

We’ve all seen dozens of lists over the years that recount all the things old-school game designers loved to include in their games for bizarre and unknown reasons, like exploding barrels and wolves that carry gold and chainmail for you to loot upon their death. Yes, these things were weird, and yes, they were ubiquitous in 8-,16-, and even 32-bit games. But why stay fixated on such long-irrelevant game-design choices when so many current developers are finding new ways to make fools of themselves every week?

Above: Hardly anyone makes mine cart levels anymore. Time to move on

In the past few years, a number of trends just as inexplicable as exploding barrels have spread like wildfire among game designers, to the point that a lot of games seem to rely on them (however paradoxically) to be noticed. Over the following seven entries, we’ll examine some of the most egregious ones and try to get to the bottom of why developers love this stuff so much.

7. Gravelly Voices
Why do they love them? Why is it that every male lead character outside of Nathan Drake has to sound like some 40-year smoking veteran named Aunt Ethel chainsaw-battling an angry wolverine when he talks? This is what we like to call “forced cool.” Yeah, Marcus Fenix is kind of cool, but so is anyone with 28-inch biceps who sounds like he eats smoldering ashtrays for breakfast. Obviously, it takes so much effort to craft a good character with subtle wit and subdued badassery (like James Bond or Han Solo) that most developers simply cannot be bothered.

Case in Point: Alex Mercer (Prototype)

By what right does Alex Mercer deserve his deep baritone? He’s a hoodie fanatic who constantly hides his face and believes he’s been deeply wronged by the powers that be. That pretty much only qualifies him to be a whiny emo kid.

6. Hoods, masks and helmets
Why do they love them? Developers enjoy waxing philosophical about the reason they choose not to reveal their character’s face. They’ll tell you all about how it allows players to become more immersed in the character, because on some level, they believe the character could really be them! If you want the realistic truth, though, it’s because they don’t want to spend the time or the resources to develop decent facial animations, and they couldn’t think of any other reason why the character’s face would be perpetually constipated during gameplay. So they cover his face in a hood or a space helmet and call it a day. Also, hair is a bitch to animate.

Case in Point: Altair (Assassin’s Creed)

Supposedly, Altair hides his face because he doesn’t want to be noticed in a crowd, or identified. But seriously, what sticks out more in a crowd than a guy in a giant white robe who hides his face and creepily stalks around? Admit it, Ubisoft: the hood was just for cool points.

5. Parkour

Why do they love it? We suspect that, at some point during the development of Assassin’s Creed, the developers at Ubisoft decided they needed some way to make things a bit more X-TREME. And since Altair with a BMX bike would have been a little silly, they had to find another extreme sport that fit more readily within the context of brutal-yet-subtle-murder. Thus, parkour suddenly became THE way to get around in games, and apparently it’s never going to go away, no matter how little sense it makes.

Case in Point: inFAMOUS

Seriously, why did having electric superpowers make Cole really good at climbing things in inFAMOUS? Couldn’t they have at least come up with some kind of silly lore-driven workaround, like those micro-fibers on Spider-Man’s fingertips?

4. Unreal Engine 3

Why do they love it? Unreal Engine 3 has become so synonymous with big-budget Western games that simply announcing you’ll be using it gets your game headlines. Developers don’t use it because they necessarily want to, but rather because using Unreal Engine 3 automatically guarantees the game will be considered “graphically superb” by a gaming world which dubs that which is shiniest, best.

Case in Point: Damnation

When Gears of War pioneered the “Unreal Engine 3 look” on consoles, it inspired years of wannabes to come chasing after its coveted aesthetic of “dirty and gritty, with a thick coat of saliva.” Damnation is a prime example, aping the weathered look of the Gears games, but none of their playability or charm. It’s also proof that “Unreal Engine 3” doesn’t necessarily mean “good-looking,” as anyone who’s seen it running for more than five minutes can attest.

3. Genre-Mashing
Why do they love it? A game developer who mashes two genres together reeks of the same desperation as a starving gamer running to the fridge at 2 a.m. only to find it barren. A developer who exclaims, “platforming-first-person-shooter-adventure-… MMO!” is just like that starving gamer, who in our example goes on to craft the curious culinary concoction of stale spaghetti with mustard and a Powerbar on a sesame seed bun. We can all agree that it was… interesting, but most of the time we end up swearing we’ll never try it again.

Case in Point: MAG

OK, so, wait: Each game is like an RTS, but only for one person on each team? And that person gives orders to a bunch of sergeants, who are playing an RTS/FPS hybrid? And those sergeants then relay commands to 230 other soldiers, who are playing a pure FPS? And it’s sort of like an MMO too?

Right.

2. Talking

Why do they love it? No group of people on this earth is more fond of digging their own graves than temperamental game designers. This is not precisely a rare bird; whether it’s Denis Dyack going off on his latest tirade, or Peter Molyneux telling us all that his latest masterwork is going to be so powerful it will make grown men commit Natal pedophilia with Milo, we’ve certainly no shortage of daytime drama here in the videogame industry. And yet developers continue to run their mouths faster than their teams can work, with the end result being disappointment and skepticism after too much hype.

Case in Point: Peter Molyneux

“I reckon that Project: Ego [Fable 1] is going to be the greatest role-playing-game of all time, which is insane. I could say the second greatest, I could say quite good, I could say, ‘Hmmmm, it’s quite nice,’ but I’m going to say greatest game of all time.”

– Peter Molyneux, in an interview with Xbox Nation, July 2003

1. Sequels

Why do they love it? So what if most sequels demand you spend the next few years of your life developing something soulless just for the money? It’s so freakin’ easy! Use the same engines and art assets from the last game, throw in a few more characters onscreen, add some zombies, and BOOM! Payday! That said, it’s hard to blame the developers for this, considering it’s the gamers who continue to purchase this stank-ridden swill. Seriously, who is it that’s still buying Dynasty Warriors?

Case in Point: Halo 3: ODST

We don’t know how good Halo 3: ODST will be, but what we do know is that it’s blatant brand-name sequel filler that’s being pushed out onto the market for the sake of filling another fiscal quarter with a Halo game. It may turn out to be a fantastic game, but let’s all be realistic: this is a cash-in title that exists for the sole purpose of keeping the seat warm for Halo 4.(source:gamesradar)