Category: May

I would like to think that I’ve played more games than the average person. Therefore, it would make sense that I would gradually grow used to the way games within specific genres are designed so that I can easily expect what type of game I’m about to play. However, there are times when I come across a game whose game design catches me off-guard. Depending on the game, this can either be a good thing or a bad thing but, in the situations where it’s good, they can cause me to look at the individual elements within a game in a brand new way. Given that, I thought I might share some of the times where games have made me rethink game design and what those elements were.

I’m going to skip the early years when I was discovering video games for the first time as the key word in this article is “rethink”, something which requires a basic understanding before it can happen. I spent many years playing games with some of my fondest memories being when I first discovered JRPGs, a Christmas morning with a new console and game and meeting my best friend because I overheard her talking about a game I had played. However, I think the first time I ever had to reexamine how games were designed was when I played a game called Dark Souls.

I recently picked up Mass Effect Legendary Edition, a rerelease of the Mass Effect trilogy, and decided to play through the three games, something I was excited to do since I’d never played the third game before. Upon glancing at the achievements, I noticed that there were achievements for completing the three games on its highest difficulty setting, Insanity. Since I’d have the option to switch difficulty midgame if I found it to be too challenging or unpleasant, I decided to give it a try and I’m glad I did as insanity difficulty made me appreciate the gameplay of the Mass Effect trilogy in a way that I didn’t before.

I should start by saying that I had played both Mass Effect 1 and 2 at their lowest difficulty in my youth, a practice that I wouldn’t shed until years later as well as playing the Soldier class which basically just meant that they’re a weapons expert. I was looking to change things up for this playthrough so, after some brief research, I settled on the Infiltrator class as they specialised in using a sniper rifle as well as some tech abilities. This decision was probably the right one for insanity difficulty as I’ll get onto in a bit.