Remember playing old Virtua Fighter games against your little cousins and getting whooped because they mashed high kick while you were trying to string together combos? Don’t let that happen. He is hammering you over the head with a lesson in good game design: DON’T LET THE PLAYER BEAT THE GAME WITH ONE MOVE. “My old housemate used to send men who were very poor and irritating out, let them get slaughtered, then send in his main team and the game would have made it easier.” Some players took advantage of shandyometers by manipulating their assets: “What’s the main reason players get disinterested in a game? Because they come across a level that they can’t beat.” One user says that the reason for adaptive AI is that it prevents disinterest in a game: For example, the enemies might all of a sudden do half-damage because the game registered that you died twelve times in the same spot. The player’s ability is measured by a number of things, depending on the game. In it, users talk about “shandyometers” that make games easier or harder based on the ability of the player. For a little background, I think it’s worth looking at this insanely old Slashdot post about adaptive A.I. Why this is brilliant isn’t immediately apparent, I’ll give you that. Even if you haven’t played the game, you know what to do now: find other ways to attack him. If you sneak up behind him once, he/his suit compensates and doesn’t allow that attack to happen again, something you learn right away. Freeze doesn’t allow you to attack him the same way twice. This is a perfect system for analyzing your surroundings while still feeling like you’re “acting,” a crucial mechanic in the Arkham series. Instead, as he lumbers around, awkwardly looking for you, you use your agility and stealth to stay out of his line of sight. If you try to hit him off the bat, he’ll clobber you, just like the majority of other enemies in the game. ![]() Freeze walks around the shut-off room with a painful slowness, obviously hindered by his suit. And what do hard-boiled detective stories revolve around? Gritty clue-finding followed up by swift and violent action. At the core of the Batman master narrative is a hard-boiled detective story that just got wrapped up in some fancy black cloth and a pointy-eared mask. The pacing is incredibly slow in this fight, but that works to its advantage. There’s a lot I learned about how to design a boss fight just from this five minute battle. That fight stands out as one of the best boss fights I’ve ever encountered in a video game for two simple reasons: pacing and Mr. ![]() Instead, I now think of that amazing fight in Batman: Arkham City. Freeze nowadays, I’m thankful to say that my mind doesn’t immediately go to a frosted-faced Arnold Schwarzenegger. When I think about the Batman villain Mr.
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