Rewind on Forza is a nice recent one, when you're trying to practice sections

Bullet time.
Aspirational badassness.

acemuzzy wrote:

Dark Soldier wrote:

b0r1s wrote:

I enjoyed the way the map showed so much, but as you explored and thought you were at the edge of the world, the map expanded. Most maps show you the scope of the map but obscure the detail, so you know the scale of the world. Elden Ring starts and you feel as you work through the first section the world feels not that big, then the UI scales as a new blank section loads. It gives you a feeling of not knowing how big the actual world is. 

I also liked the marker mechanic, but felt this was better handled in BOTW.

You could also have that lift in ER. Genuinely think it's my favourite moment ever. Just the realisation.

Which lift? There were lots of lifts...

djchump wrote:

Bullet time.
Aspirational badassness.

F.E.A.R oh my days. Still number one short solo FPS campaign, holds up very well.

Thanks for all the nice suggestions. Another one I'm thinking about is the insanity system in Eternal Darkness.

App doesn't work on new Androids

I think reddave nailed it with the first response to be honest

Be a suck up and pick a feature from a game made by the people you're applying to

The feature that popped to my mind was the narration element in sands of time and how that fed into explaining not dying in game and the time manipulation etc

Favourite feature,for me, personally, couch MP. If I were looking to apply to a games company with this answer then, depending on the company and the types of games that they produce, I may try and use this as a jumping off point about how sharing the experience of playing with others is important, be that through photo modes or Twitter integration or some other shit that I don’t actually give a toss about but which provides a subtext of “I’ll help you market your game”.

Least favourite game and how I’d change it, again, personal opinion, but I’d go with BotW, with the caveat that it’s not actually my least favourite game, but it’s a reasonably recent critical darling that I wasn’t a huge fan of. How I’d change it: make it smaller, tighter, more focused. Subtext that I’d be trying to put across here is “you don’t need to spend millions of pounds on building massive environments, you can create good, engaging games with a smaller budget”.

The second is probably riskier than the first, TBH.

Whatever you go with, think about what the subtext of your answer is telling the interviewer. There’s probably not a huge amount of point telling people that you wish that RDR2 had greater realism and interactivity as few companies will be able to match RDR’s level of realism and interactivity in the first place.

Think of things that you personally enjoy or not, so you can talk about them with genuine enthusiasm and passion, but also consider whether or not you’ll be displaying enthusiasm for things that are within the company’s scope to achieve.

Feature: if we’re talking Forza rewind, why not Prince of Persia rewind? I thought that was implemented very well and seemed pretty inventive back then. 

Also, Active Time Lore or whatever it’s called in FFXVI is good.  A good recent example. Easy and quick way to catch some background and lore without extensive exposition or separate lengthy text.

For me - great game features:

PoP: Sands of Time - the rewind. Was thinking about this last night, then saw elf come in and mention it. I think it's easy to forget how refreshing and, even, subversive it was. Make a mistake? Just rewind! It maintained the flow of the game, alleviated frustration with what was, at the time, a very new form of platforming and traversal and it also worked thematically - both in the moment to moment gameplay (you have the dagger) and the overarching circular narrative of the game.  Just absolutely brilliant design.

Shadow of the Colossus - sword light. The world of SotC is dead and barren and empty. It's also big and you have to fight the Colossi in a certain order. Finding them could have been frustrating, but the game allows you to raise your sword and get a beam of light in the direction you need to travel. Why does this work? It means the game doesn't need compass or map markers. It means the game doesn't need an Assassins Creed style bird companion to give you a bird's eye view and tag locations of interest. You still have to aim the light, and the direction is, well, direct - you still have to figure out how to get there and, importantly, it stops traversal and discovery feeling *gamey* - hugely important in a series of games that have always gone for a physical and naturalistic presence in the world.

A big fave of mine would be the Halo games and being able to give your followers particular guns, then have them blast away with rockets/snipers/plasma while you hoon around in a warthog. Excellently satisfying.

Also movable placeable auto turrets in any first person FPS, Half Life 2 would be an excellent example of this. I can't explain why exactly but I absolutely adore doing fuck all other than moving a wall of turret death around and having them spray lead at anything that moves. I'll happily spend an hour trying to find the perfect placement a set-piece where every angle is covered (that bit at the end of Nova Prospekt). I wish more games would have turrets that are that well balanced and tactile to use.

Necromancy/conjuration/follower critters fighting with you and watching them kill shit also scratches this itch, in mostly any game really.

Sands of Time is a great shout. It's been so long since I've played it though. But the application deadline is still two weeks away and it's currently £1.71 on Steam so a quick replay might be in order.

I thought of Portals too but think it might be a bit too obvious. Recharging shields in Halo is also a great suggestion. I think it's easy to forget just how much such a simple feature influenced the entire genre.

I enjoyed Fifa for a short while after PES got shit but I lost interest a fair few years ago.  I watched a trailer for the next one thinking it'd look amazing and yeah, it's the weird animation that makes it look horrible.  Basically everything looks great until it moves, even though there was some chap talking about how awesome the new fluid animation system is over the top of the footage I was watching.  No it's not m8, I can still see the strings.

Hotline Miami on Vita - touch screen lock on oh my god let's get Nuts.

mk64 wrote:

The sound options in Street Fighter 6 which allowed a blind player to beat a player on the stage at evo this year. That's the stuff which should be put into more games.

That's the right answer. As someone losing hearing at an exponential rate, would love to see more of that.