Map screens (good and bad)

[Ady]

Not the most exciting of topics I know, but it's something I've been musing over this weekend.

Many of today's games provide a map to help the player if they get lost. On some games, you tend to use the map a lot, on others you don't. This could be because you don't need it, but sometimes, it's because the map is so useless, you prefer to muddle aalong without it.

So, which are the games consider to have good or bad maps respectively? If you can, please state what you like/dislike about them and how the bad maps could be improved.

I'll start with a few.

Good:

Super Metroid : Clean, functional and tells you exactly what you need to know (ie where you are and where you've been).

Any post-SOTN Castlevania (inclusive) : As above. The new PS2 game also tells you which way you're facing (useful as it's in 3D).

Gregory Horror Show : Again, clean, uncluttered and easy to follow.

Bad:

Boktai : I'm playing this now. I don't like the map. It's needlessly messy and fails to provide any useful information whatasoever. A zoom function would be nice too.

Jet Set Radio : The map on this game was terrible, imo. A lazy and utterly useless effort. The designers may as well have not even bothered.

Any Zelda game (dungeon maps) : Well come on, do you use them? There you go. Admittedly, they're far from terrible, but they are incredibly vague.

OK over to you. Discuss your good/bad game maps here.

[Concept]

In Silent Hill maps usually serve as a depressing reminder at how many locked doors there are with that far too familiar red squiggle.

[edandersen]

Any Zelda game (dungeon maps) : Well come on, do you use them? There you go. Admittedly, they're far from terrible, but they are incredibly vague.

Joking right? How many identical muddy textures in the forest temple (with identical looking matching rooms, natch) can you look at without resorting to the map?

A bloody lifesaver those chaps are!

[revisedgenocide]

Bad
second sight- Tried to be all GC Metroid but just looked like a jaggy mess. Trying to highlight rooms was a pain since unless you were extremely precise youd highlight completely the wrong room.

[Nisa]

The 3D map on Metroid Prime was excellent I thought,very useful indeed especially when you're running out of health and looking for nearby save points.

I agree with Ed with regards to the maps in Zelda, I couldn't play the games without them, particularly when trying to find the master key & compass etc.

[Concept]

Shenmue II featured a good map system. Without it, navigating Wan Chai, Kowloon and the like would have been much more harder. I also liked the fact that it was up to you to purchase them. It meant you could explore with only your own sense of direction or use a device from the game to help out as well. The ability to mark points out in each section was a god send too.

[EvilBoris]

BOktai's was so rubbish I couldn't beleive it! I'd virtually finished the game before I made actual use of it

[scarredbyvideogames]

I rarely bother looking at maps and although Metroids map for example was great I always found things just by using memory and instinct - in fact,if I tried using the map I just got confused to be honest.

Loads of people complained about the fact that in 'Siren',though there was a map,your character didnt show up on it - I mean c'mon!Get a sense of direction for Gods sake! - the areas werent even very big! - some people couldnt find their own arse without an ordance survey map and a torch.

[dataDave]

My mate's gf is currently playing through LttP (her 2nd game player 'ever' after Mario World, not a bad portfolio that). She was getting sooo damn stuck on the dungeons until I spent 30mins explaining the maps to her. Now she's fine and up to Ganon's Castle.

[Paleface]

Anyone remember Descent? From what I can tell, it was like MP before MP... but it was also a nightmare. And slightly confusing. I loved it, but get the feeling most others didn't...

[Magnakai]

I was about to mention Descent, too.
Just thinking about that makes my head want to explode.

[Lebowski]

In Silent Hill maps usually serve as a depressing reminder at how many locked doors there are with that far too familiar red squiggle.

i couldent get through the silent hill games without those maps we were wandering around for ages trying to work out where we had and haddent been untill we satared useing the maps.

the thing that puzzles me about the silent hill games is the amount of dead ends or locked doors there must be hundreds throughout the entire game and what type of building has more doors than wall space.

[112]

Dino Crisis 3 has one of the worst map systems eva! sure you can rotate it and stuff but the fact of the matter is 3D maps dont really work unless its viewed at isometric angle. It jus confused the hell out of me i was litterally lost and decided to jus play through memory of the ship interior. I dunno, they over complicated matters by trying to be all futuristic and technical! FFS!

112

[SimplF]

Ah, two people who agree with the "map" on Descent. I know It is a pretty early 3-D Map, but the endless amounts of wireframes on top of each other...

Another nightmare is the map on Persona (PSX)... It is, fully 3D, um... But somehow I always get lost in the city... Like running back and forth and checking the map just to make sense about the thing in what general direction you should run umm. The map could have used a damn compass. My head still hurts. When you actually got near the place you were supposed to go to, you still had to run around the building mass since you couldn't see where is the entrance on the map. I dunno if I'm alone with this opinion, but maybe I'm spoiled with too good maps on games.

[lostn]

I found MP's 3D maps extremely difficult to follow... I needed to spend a lot of time trying to interpret it before I could understand what I needed to. Zelda's maps are better. They split it into layers instead of going 3D. I always use the zelda maps to see which rooms I haven't been to and thus need to go to.