We’ve all played them. Games that live long in the memory; games that dominate your every waking moment for weeks at a time and games that you’d replay over and over again if you had the time…
But what I want to know is this…Have you ever played a game that you loved, but had to work around the fact that one of the games core mechanics was just… kinda trash?
For context, I’m currently working through the excellent Bloodborne. I can see why it’s largely considered the best one of those games, and potentially one of the best games released in the last decade…at the same time I cannot abide the way the game handles healing and health vials.
What about you.
I spent 5 calendar years modding Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri to make my SMACX AI Growth mod. I solved many things, but one totally rubbish thing caused me more rage quits over the years than all other sources combined. Probe teams can take over cities for trivial amounts of credits, compared to the value of the city and the military units in it. The original game formula is completely overpowered and broken. My mod is .txt modding only, as anyone who bought the game could originally do. I was able to mitigate the problem but not solve it. It’s now down to goddamn irritating instead of absolutely infuriating. The only way to fix the mechanic short of making a totally new game from scratch, is binary modding the original game. People do that, and I have the technical skills to do it, but I studiously avoided any invitations to engage in binary modding. It took me 5 calendar years as it was to perfect my .txt mod to the degree it could be perfected. I’m done providing free stuff for the internet that way. Next gaming effort gets me a paycheck (I hope someday).