Have you ever been playing a video game where the universe is ending and only you can save it, but the game still allows you to tool around and do whatever you want until you decide to get around to it? Of course you have, because that seems to be every video game ever.
Lately, I've been playing the new Tomb Raider game by Crystal Dynamics. I have been enjoying it immensely, but there are some things that still bother me. I'm the kind of player who wraps himself up in the story, and I feel the weight and immediacy of the situation. All too often, however, when there is a situation that doesn't seem like it can wait, I'll come across a side activity that will take up some of my time. For example: in the game there is a plane that crashes, and Lara Croft decides that she has to go to the smoke signal to retrieve him and make sure that he's okay, not two minutes into my journey to get to him do I come across an extraneous activity. I understand that the game would have allowed me to do that, and still be able to get to the pilot and have everything play out the same way if I hadn't, but still. I find this kind of thing to be vexing.
Tomb Raider isn't the only game that commits this crime, though. There are many others. It seems that the entire game of Skyrim is built around this principle. The world is ending, and it all starts with the province of Skyrim. Dragons seem to be around every bend, and can drop in on any town. The end times are truly here. "LOL, I'll go and collect Dwemer cogs for that one guy at the Mage's College for whatever reason he asked me to." Things like this should take more precedence in your game experience. I mean, in Skyrim, you can become an assassin, and eventually murder the Emperor. The world is ending and you want to upset the political balance?
However, most games commit another crime of locking things out if you complete the main quest. A game that comes to mind is Batman: Arkham City. I really enjoyed this game, though being one who is not one for completing games 100% I missed out on a few things. What I really liked about Arkham City is how all of the side quests played out. Each one of the side missions centered around a specific Batman villain. There was something going on that Batman had to solve, and it played out with a full story. The down side of the game is that most of these fleshed out side stories are closed off after completing the main game. Why do this? Why force the player to start over again, just to experience these extraneous, but really cool, side missions? This happens in a lot of other games as well, and I don't think that it should. I think that the game should give players total freedom once they have taken the time to beat the main game.
I feel like I talk about Mass Effect 2 a lot here, but it just does so many things right. It is the only game that I've beaten 100%, and yet I still go back to it. Moreover, I find myself discovering new things to do in the game. What ME 2 does right when it comes to side quests, is that the game finds the perfect balance of rewarding the player vs the time spend playing that side quests. Not all of the side quests are that exciting, like when you have to go to some backwater planet just to kill some mechs to recover boxes which only net you a few credits, but the game makes it okay because after each mission you are greeted by the mission summary screen which doubles your collective profit from each activity. It seems ridiculous, but when you finally get around to buying those upgrades, you'll notice the difference in the next firefight. Plus, the side quests make up the majority of the game. Mass Effect 2 is structured around the "Loyalty Missions" for each one of the crew members. The reward for completing these is allowing your crew member to survive the final mission and allowing them to show up in the next game. Another thing that Mass Effect 2 gets right is that it forces the player back onto the main story line after a few side missions here and there. It's a good reminder to the player that they need to constantly be preparing for the final battle with the Collectors. This kind of game structure plays into the building of the character and story, which is awesome. Each one of those missions that takes you away from roaming around the galaxy and helping out your crew really sucks, just because they're so tough, but they remind you of the threat of the Collectors.
The stories in games are usually presented with something that needs to be taken care of immediately, yet often times the games themselves will allow players to lollygag about and take their time. Even in a linear game like Tomb Raider, players can just let something that could very important to the survival of Lara Croft and her friends just sit and wait. That's no good. If you're going to stress to me that there is something that needs to be taken care of right away, make me do it. After all, I'm the "only one who can do it", or you could just put up a timer and not tell the player like Fable III... on second thought, don't do that.
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