Mechanics or Meh-canics

This was originally written in January this year; but I re-read it and I think it's awesome so I'm going to review and push it out. :)

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Something I've been thinking about a lot recently, is how it seems that almost without fail... that sequels to great games will be better in almost all ways except the actual game mechanics.

I'm not really talking about remakes, such as XCOM or Dues ex, though it's true there too. I'm really taking aim at sequels released by the same publisher, developer and often the same team (though presumably not exactly the same...).

My prime example is Rome, Total War 2 against the original Rome and Dishonored 2 vs Dishonored. Both games are perfect examples; Rome 2 with it's lackluster physical interaction between troops where they move around as if the solders are just water flowing around and mixing. Dishonored 2 with it's baffling move away from deterministic movements and instead making everything scripted.

For Rome, I feel this takes away from a few critical elements but also immersion; watching soldiers float around when they clash instead of hitting and looking as if there's real momentum and impact just feels stupid and surreal. It actually make several simple strategies fall over because there's no such thing as a truly solid mass of troops... as well as losing simple cool elements lost from the original game, such as when a "cilvilised" army like the Romans has units make way so that others can pass through them faster.

For Dishonored 2, it's a little more difficult to explain; because for most players you won't even notice it... I didn't at first, but in short: in the original game when an enemy made an attack then they would make some sort of movement and their weapon; normally a sword, would move through space and if you were in that space then you'd get hit when it made contact. In Dishonored 2 when an enemy makes an attack a script runs immediately and decides if you've been hit or not. What that actually means, is that in the original you could dodge or do something to simply avoid an attack; in the sequel you either hit the specified block button at the right time and block the attack or you get hit and that's it.

I learnt about this one from people who spent a lot of time making videos for YouTube of cool runs in Dishonored 1 and 2; you can actually see a different between how videos feel between each game, it's amazing.

So; what does this mean? What can we do? Do "we" even care?

I care, so what I do is play the older games. I'm not really interested in Rome 2 or any of the later Total Wars for that matter; and I've never played Dishonored 2.

If this is something you've not seen or noticed; dig a little into your favorite games and try to understand how your game functions... if nothing else it might make you a better player.