Your epiphany moments in game design.

I finally got around to playing assians creed 2, and have started to realize that it is an expertly crafted game. The world, Traversal, Combat all excelent but the real revolution is in the ability to climb ladders from both SIDES!!!. How long did it take us to get to this point, so many games have free hanging ladders that make you feel stupid for not picking the right side in a time of panic. I even beleve some games (ones I can't seem to think of right now) will even let you get on the wrong side of a ladder just to laugh at you. Anyway are there any game design choices that made you think HECK YES!!!!. Oh and a shout out to mass effect 3 for not ever making you walk back to a quest giver. Because ripping a dragons heart out of it's chest triumphantly then haveing to walk back, feels like the equvolent of getting on a city bus.

From a level design/architecture stand point the Temple of Pandora in God of War blew me away. To have 4 or 5 large dungeon areas all end in the same hub and combine to form another puzzle was just so mind boggling. Now when I look back I think they probably made each dungeon individually and just bridged them all together with short combat areas. They could cut their puzzle pieces to fit together so to speak.

Your avatar is surprisingly in tune with the tone of this thread. So much so I forgot what I was going to say.

Asians Creed 2

@KarlPilkington said:

Asians Creed 2

<insert racism>

Asians Creed 2

Probably Final Fantasy 10. It was the first PS2 game I ever played and it just seemed so amazing. Mostly the visuals and the cutscenes. That improvment of graphics from one generation to another probably wont ever happen again.

I feel like Mortal Kombat is one of the best crafted games of 2011. Street Fighter made me feel like I had a chance to get in to fighting games, until I played it. But starting up MK was a wholly different experience. I was going in, feeling weak and dejected, like I would be immediately repulsed and hate it... and put in 40 hours over the course of about 4 days. The combat system is amazing in it's ability to be both deep AND accessible, the characters and stage design were great and I ran into few multiplayer issues, although honestly, most of my time was spent locally. The Battle Tower was an amazing concept that kept me playing for a long time, and I went through the story mode twice because it was just that good. And it's a fighting game. It still blows my mind.

I would also like to submit Red Dead Redemption. There were some things about that game that were wrong, but I feel like that was one of the first open-world games that I ever played where it felt like I was encountering truly random events. They may have gotten a slight bit predictable over time, once you've basically seen them all, but the first time that someone rides up and tells you that their friend is being unjustly lynched and you speed off with them, shoot the rope and all the crazies in a single deadeye, it was amazing. Even more amazing when you kill them, but fail to save the person in time, and watch the NPC who rallied you to their cause collapse to their knees, sobbing, put a revolver to their head and pull the trigger. That was perhaps one of the most shocking, poignant moments I had in a video game where I thought "...I did that. I caused that. I fucked up and those were the consequences." It may not have been real, but it was something that really resonated with me, and seemed to be an incredible part of the design.

@Breadfan said:

Probably Final Fantasy 10. It was the first PS2 game I ever played and it just seemed so amazing. Mostly the visuals and the cutscenes. That improvment of graphics from one generation to another probably wont ever happen again.

Y'know what? Yes. I agree with that. The last Final Fantasy game I had played was 8, and I played it fairly religiously. When I first got a PS2, I picked up 10, and that was the first time that it occurred to me that we'd really hit the next generation of games. Animation was great, the combat system was good, the aesthetic design of the whole game was pleasing and unique, the story was well done and interesting, your character didn't look entirely androgynistic, and the CG was fucking amazing. Everything about that game was pretty top notch, save for the laughing scene. AH. HAH. HAH. HAH. HAH. HAH.

The first Jak and Daxter game. An open world platformer with day to night cycles? I was blown away.

I'd love to go for something super obscure in a game nobody's ever heard of, but this resonated with me yesterday. The cover system in Gears of War 3 (or any gears game). Say what you want about cover based shooters, but Gears nails it on the head. Why? Because your fighting monsters, yet the whole notion of ducking into cover and watching Marcus or any player character duck into cover and keep their head down like their life is literally depending on it is so awesome. The sci-fi elements are fantastical yet the cover-based stuff is very grounded in reality (I've never been to war, but I've played paintball, and keeping your head down in cover is something that is easy to relate to). It just feels very clever.

Then there's the camera shake on the roadie run that, for me, NEVER gets old......