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May 23, 2004
The Ultimate War Sim
David Wong has a message for computer game makers:
[Here ...] is my open letter to the Real Time Strategy gaming cartel. I want a War Simulation. A real one. I don't want little cartoon tanks jostling around in a video sandbox chewing down each other's health meters while a preteen opponent insults my sexuality using every key on his keyboard except the ones with letters. I want an RTS game that will give me a stress headache after an hour and an ulcer after a week. I want to identify experienced players on the street by their Thousand-Yard Stares.
I want a War Sim...
[...]
3. Every War Sim has a "Fog of War" that obscures the map in darkness until units scout the landscape. Well, I want a hazy, brown "Fog of Bullshit" layer below that. I want it to make a village of farmers look like a secret armed militia, I want it to show me a massive enemy fortress where there is actually an Aspirin factory. I want to never know for sure which it was, even after the game is over.
[...]
11. Gamers complain about bad "pathfinding" (that is, your units wandering around the map and falling into the river against your orders). Well, I want worse pathfinding. I want entire platoons who wander into the mountains because somebody bled on the map. I want tanks to get stuck turret-deep in mud flats and have to be rescued by helicopters while snipers pick off soldiers trying to keep their boots from being sucked off their feet in muck.
[...]
[Via Amygdala]
Posted by John at May 23, 2004 09:21 PM
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