The Complexity of Games

Complexity of games can be a tricky thing for developers it seems. On the one side of the coin you have the K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle. On the other side of that coin you can try and throw everything and the kitchen sink into your game. Two games that I've most recently picked up are practically at almost the extreme ends of this spectrum.

Recently I took up DC Universe Online, which is a fun title to say the least. Its a simple game play style, almost too simple in some ways. I sometimes often find myself wishing I had more info about the armor and stats on how they actually affect my game play than what is currently visible in the game. The game play itself is nice if you have a controller. If you don't have one though, it gets a bit more awkward trying to perform the moves with a mouse and keyboard.

I also picked up a copy of Skyrim recently. Again the title is fun, but I my biggest complaint about Skyrim will remain my biggest complaint about the previous Elder Scroll's title. Its too big and too complex. Especially given its scope. Don't get me wrong, I applaud the amount of work the developers have put into these titles. You can go anywhere in the game, and do anything, but at the end of the day given its scope the game just feels so dead and lifeless to me. The NPCs don't do much and I still feel like I'm inside some weird vacuum when I play it.

Somewhere in the middle of these two makes me very happy some times. Ironically Minecraft in all of its simplicity is very fun to play; with a server setup I don't feel like I'm living in a vacuum as well. So maybe that's something both Sony and Bethesda can learn from. Sony, lets get some more numbers, and maybe some crafting into DCUO. Bethesda, let me play with some of my friends, and maybe give me away to actually alter the landscape I'm playing in. (Housing? Castles? Siege engines?!)