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Feedback: That feeling of TWHOMP and Impact
I'll be asking a simple question. What is the most enjoyable part in playing ANY video game? Is it the feeling of control over an avatar whose supposed to represent yourself in the world you are playing in? Is it the feeling of immersing in an environment that is out of reality, thus triggering your sense of disbelief and feeling part of the game? Is it looking at all of the nice characters? Is it executing all of those moves and skillfully pulling them off? Or to shorten everything, BEING ABLE TO Frogging play it? If you ask me, those are indeed many among the things that we enjoy in playing ANY video game.
But what about the smaller things that most of us tend to forget or even take for granted? Well I'm here to talk about one of my favorite parts of playing ANY game: Feedback. Good sir you may ask? What is this "Feedback" are you trying to talk about? Feedback in this context I'm trying to discuss is the a biochemical pathway or behavioral response that you experience when you experience an action. In layman's terms or in the simplest that i can tell you, its that feeling of "TWHOMP" or "impact". http://www.mariowiki.com/images/thumb/6/64/Thwomp2.PNG/200px-Thwomp2.PNGhttp://www.mariowiki.com/images/thumb/6/64/Thwomp2.PNG/200px-Thwomp2.PNGhttp://www.mariowiki.com/images/thumb/6/64/Thwomp2.PNG/200px-Thwomp2.PNG To cite examples of this "feeling of TWHOMP" or impact that I'm discussing, I'll cite some of the things that I'm trying to say: Remember your first time playing Doom? Remember the first time killing a monster with a shotgun blast to the face? The feeling of blasting said monster to the face with your firearm. You don't just see the action you committed but you feel that you did something. You felt like your chest is being punched as you see your character's hands pump the shotgun and the loud sound of the firearm is ripping through your ears, and behind the muzzle flash, you see that demon blown into a bloody corpse. http://i.imgur.com/Z5WWVgA.jpg?1 Fast forward to Doom 2: Hell on Earth, the game gave us the Super Shotgun. The Double barreled shotgun. There is a reason why I find this weapon one of the most iconic weapons in not just the FPS genre but in gaming in general. I remember firing this weapon for the very first time, and just when i thought the regular shotgun gave me a good punch, the Super Shotgun lived up to its name by giving me a DOUBLE HANDED UPPERCUT. The really loud BANG of the super shotgun made firing the very powerful weapon even more powerful as i blasted a horde of unlucky demons. Even moreso, firing the weapon also showed a reload sound and animation that played like music to my ears. That iconic weapon meant so much. http://i.imgur.com/KXDcW7n.png?1 Now another fast forward. We come to something that has reinvigorated my love for Doom.. None other than BRUTAL DOOM. You've probably heard of Brutal Doom before, oh the "Violent version of Doom" how cool is that? A violent version of an already violent video game. Brutal Doom has become one of the most influential gameplay mods of the time for not only making Doom even more badass than it is, but for also changing the gameplay in such a way that the game feels more modern while still keeping the charm of what made Doom so great back in 93-94. But there is a secret. According to the mod creator SgtMark IV, this is what he says about Brutal Doom: Quote:
If Doom wasn't the first person shooter you played, I'll just ask you the time you remember your first time firing a weapon in the very first FPS game you played. Did you feel your chest being punched as you fired your weapon and behind the muzzle flash, you see that the enemy target you're taking down is taking some hits? If you felt that way, then you felt the TWHOMP or the "impact" i'm talking about here. http://i.imgur.com/3qBeZdC.jpg Heck, I wont limit this discussion on merely FPS games. I'll cite something from a Hack and Slash. One of the things I enjoyed the most with Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance was the parries. While some may have questioned the way it was performed, myself included, I always felt the satisfaction of the successful parry whenever i see and feel that I just deflected a blow, with all of the flashes of steel and solid materials clashing against each other, and that loud sound of clashed steel and solid grinding against my ears. That feeling was so satisfying that i eventually got used to parrying and pretty much appreciated the gameplay. After all, parrying in MGRR is the essential part of survival, and as an essential part of the game, i found it satisfying to do. http://i.imgur.com/7HRWfvj.png Hell, I can take this into even older genres and games. How about Super Mario? Remember the very first time you headstomped a goomba? You may or may have felt that impact of stomping the poor thing while Mario bounced off its crushed corpse. Heck, even the running. Whenver Mario ran, he's building this sort of momentum that enables him to run fast and jump a great distance as well. And while you performed that run of holding down the B Button and Forward at the same time, you are feeling that weight of holding down forward in order to do it. This feeling of impact or i'll affectionally call it "TWHOMP" is one of the reasons why I enjoy playing video games. It makes the immersion even more immersive. It makes doing the essential and even mundane aspects of a game be fulfilling to perform. It makes you feel the effort in the executions of your actions. That feeling of crunch, impact, and BANG, in what you are doing. It makes doing actions feel even more powerful and impactful than they already are. Simply put, feedback or TWHOMP enables us to enjoy games even more, and its one of the things that even professional game designers often forget in exchange for "simpler and more convenient" gameplay. Call of Duty 4 (PC) was a CoD game that i genuinely enjoyed for a time to the point where i encouraged some of my Counter-Strike buddies to try moving out of CS and into CoD4 so that I have more friends to play with, other than just joining public servers. The thing with CoD4, it was really easy to pick up and play, which carried out to the rest this juggernaut of a game series. I remember my first time playing CoD4, i really enjoyed the whole aiming of my iron sights with my AK47 and start blasting away at the baddies. However, the more i played CoD4, the more i felt the one thing that i felt was lacking compared to Counter Strike. The feeling of weight and impact or the TWHOMP. https://4316bd223ebdc131e650-eb3b436d25971e5860b39e72b0600342.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/images/eX9DJda3hyNh.878x0.Z-Z96KYq.jpg For those who aren't aware, hitting things in a CoD game is pretty simple. Target the guy with your crosshairs, shoot away, and the very second you already fired the weapon, you've already hit the target. Bullet drop doesn't exist in CoD. Everything in CoD is a hit-scan, and followed by hitting your targets is the now-comical hit marker sounds that everyone puts in their "MLG" parodies. That's how the feeling of feedback is felt in CoD. That little "twip twip twip" or those funny sounding ticks. The more i played CoD4, the more I realized why my Counter Strike friends didn't enjoy it that much. While they all had their reasons, I just felt that everyone in CoD was a flimsy piece of paper. Everyone moved pretty fast, and everyone died just as fast with a few bullets. When i was hitting targets in CoD4, i wasn't feeling the same "weight" and "impact" as i did in Counter Strike. In counter strike, when you fired your shots that hit people, you heard even from a mile away those sounds of flesh tearing out of their skin, just like what would happen if people actually got hit with bullets. I just felt that I was hitting pieces of moving cardboard cutouts in a shooting range. I wasn't feeling the war or the shootouts. http://i.imgur.com/q20v4V0.jpg?1 Heck, if it came to gun sound effects, Counter Strike has some of the most satisfying gun sounds I've ever heard, and you'll also ever here in any FPS game. Its one of the things that i enjoyed in CS, and combined with the TWHOMP that it had in the combat, playing CS felt really solid and meaty. In CoD4, its just not there for me. The weapon sound effects didn't sound as powerful or crunchy (Seriously none of the CoD sniper rilfes could ever match the roar of the AWP). The more i played CoD, the more i felt that I'm just shooting a bunch of cardboard cutouts that could fire bullets. Nevertheless, I enjoyed and still do both games. I enjoy Counter Strike for what it is, and I respectfully enjoy CoD for what it is. This is where i end my long post/rant/pouring my heart out and in sharing a topic that I'd always wanted to talk about since I invaded and made VG my home. If you understood what i meant here, please like, comment, and subscribe. show your appreciation and cite your own examples of that feeling of TWHOMP you enjoy in gaming. If you couldn't follow up, I'll try to clarify things in the next post. I wrote this very topic and want to share this with VG since i know some of you guys may want to have a job at Game Design or are interested in such, like making your own indie games or possibly going pro as well. I wanted to share something that may help you achieve that dream as well as you know increase your way of thinking and the way you appreciate even the small but essential things in video games. CREDITS: Me for writing all of this crud All images belong to their respective owners. The Brutal Doom Screenshot is some random screenie i took while enjoying the insanity. THIS Article for inspiring me to write about this and giving the opportunity to discuss this with VG: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/brutal-doom-makes-one-of-the-best-games-ever-made-even-better |
Just here to say Tekken nails this perfectly and it's why I love playing it despite being so bad at it.
http://media.giphy.com/media/lXiRwghYWdliNh0Nq/giphy.gif Fighting games that provide heavy feedback with every hit are the best. It's one of the big reasons Street Fighter V feels so fantastic to play. You feel every clean hit. It's so rewarding when you feel that impact. |
Ohoh, a game design article. Fun, and on Feedback too, the most easily overlooked yep probably one of the most important facets of game design. A lot of times when quality needs to be sacrificed, feedback takes the bullet, which is a shame because it really does have a much larger impact on one's appreciation for a game than they'd think. Hell, people'd be surprised if they knew that without solid feedback, some games just wouldn't even be fun.
I've half a mind to move this over to Gaming Media since, really, I'd love more of this stuff over there. That in mind, that's really up to you, Xin. After all, at present, it'd definitely attract more attention here. |
Ah, this has for a long time been something I've been conscious of, and as you say it really can make or break a game's combat. Certain titles jump to mind immediately:
Dark Messiah, the only game to do first person melee combat real justice. Sareth would literally do an animated parry for the hits you receive while you were blocking with only a weapon. Power attacks are these mighty two-handed swings that shift the whole screen around, this screen motion being something that wouldn't really become common in games until a few years later afaik. And then the dagger backstab, a thrust into collar followed with a lever motion bringing the blade's point to somewhere within the neck, accompanied by a crunch that could make the already queasy feel positively ill. It's only one animation, but in this case I feel quality trumped any potential quantity. Mount & Blade doesn't have a real feeling of 'weight' to one's attacks since there's no camera feedback, though with the 'more metal sound' mod there are plenty of satisfying crunches to be heard. Still, catching a passing horseman's steed in the gullet while on foot with a horizontal two-handed swing from a heavy weapon, instantly unhorsing him and seeing damage numbers like 287 in a game where everyone's hitpoints are around 40, really makes you feel like, if the game were more graphic, that your weapon would've carried on through the whole length of the horse. It makes you feel immensely powerful in a game where an arrow that just so happens to hit your head can very well instantly incapacitate you. Riding up to people and throwing axes in their faces is fun too. Monster Hunter has a slight pause in the PC's attack animations as their weapon presumably bites into a monster's flesh (which I infer from more damaging hits to softer areas having longer pauses, and blows to armoured areas not causing any pause at all as they presumably only glance or cause superficial cuts). Slashing away is curiously satisfying because of these slight pauses in and of themselves, rather than the low-bitrate sound effects or the river of blood that flows forth. These pauses are actually very short (unless you're using dual swords, in which case they start to get obnoxiously frequent to the point that they each seem to last longer — and maybe they do for all I know) but your subconscious will be like YESSSS MMOOOORE. Also since MH4, ranged weapons hitting within their most effective range bracket will cause a screen shake, which has made those enjoyable for me when before they felt anemic (the bow still is a relatively low damage weapon, but at least it can feel powerful now). Crysis 2 had me awed for one lone weapon: the M2HB HMG that you can rip from mountings in strength mode. People generally seem to like fast-firing guns for some reason, but the feeling of power from this century-old weapon's paced and relenetless thumping monotone as it spat out massive vapour-streaming tracers, each laden with the stopping power of a sniper round to the head, made me want to find an infinite ammo cheat and use it throughout the campaign. Last mention. Reload the shotgun in the original Halo: Combat Evolved. Seriously, you might never have done this but completely empty it and then let Chief reload the thing fully. What follows has to be the most gratifying gun-cocking sound & animation ever. I could go on with talk of Spinfusors and Great Chaos Fireballs (hell, while I'm mentioning something from Dark Souls, the feedback from 'fat rolling' is actually pretty epic too) and whatnot, but I fear I've already said too much for anyone's care. Still, making this post did remind me of something that has never been satisfying in video games: flamethrowers. The range is too short and the flame spouts forth like a gas cloud rather than the gelatinous liquid it should be. It's such a shame; the real things are far more akin to waterguns than spray cans in how they handle. With all the physics engines around nowadays, surely these weapons deserve by now to be handled realistically, with all the aiming skill required to direct an arcing stream onto the target. These weapons wouldn't provide much —if any— feedback as such, but the particle physics spectacle it should present would be awesome. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/Churchill_Crocodile_01.jpg |
Oh cool, somebody actually mentioned Tekken (and fighting games) and i completely forgot to mention how playing it feels so fantastic with the "BAM" effects it has. Oh and nice GIF of it too. Guilty Gear starting in the "X" line is another fighting series that i really love not only for the style and music, but also for the crunchy hits that come along, especially when doing those really awe inspiring combos. The first ever Guilty Gear ever wasn't really so great in this department though.
Did somebody mentioned Dark Messiah? Oh yeah that game made First Person Melee combat look and feel like the real deal. And for a now 10 year old game, it still hits the spot. Too bad this style of Melee is rarely ever executed well in recent times. |
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