Scripted Bosses

[abigsmurf]

I'm sure most people here have done it at some point. Got to an end boss, unloaded all of your most powerful weapons at it, only to find that it's pretty much unscathed and you're almost out of ammo. Turns out rather than blow it to bits, you had to press three buttoms , run up to his tail whilst he pauses to charge an attack and then activate a QTE. Repeat this three times and you win the game!

Anyone else just miss "shoot it until it dies" bosses? I know it's more cinematic to have scripted events that rely on using the envoironment and let you get chased through ruined cities and stuff but in most of these games, you play a badass and should act like one.

There's no reason why you can't still make a "shoot it until it does" boss dramatic without resorting to 'wait until it exposes its weak point' or QTEs, it's just lazy design in my book.

When I was looking at the E3 Resistance 2 demo, I saw that heavily scripted battle with the giant monster and it failed to excite me. It was so linear and scripted that it didn't really feel like a proper boss battle. Same goes for the opening level of God of War 2.

I miss things like the Cyberdemon as bosses (although to be fair, even Doom 2 had as close to a scripted boss as the Doom engine could do)

[DeathAdder]

One of the very few things I didn't like about the God of War games was the way bosses had to be killed in a certain way - same applied to Force Unleashed. Miss a button press and the boss gets a quarter of its energy back, and you have to do it again.

I think a good compromise would be to allow normal shoot-the-bastard-till-he-dies kills but maybe to award more bonuses for doing it the scripted way. Like the way Shadows of the Empire allowed you just to shoot the At-Ats, but gave you challenge points for tripping them up.

[egparadigm]

One of the things I don't like is the way that you'll unload all your ammunition and then the boss will turn into his second form and you've wasted it all before he's vulnerable.

Kudos on using Shadows of the Empire as an example, Stroppy.

[DeathAdder]

One of the things I don't like is the way that you'll unload all your ammunition and then the boss will turn into his second form and you've wasted it all before he's vulnerable.

Kudos on using Shadows of the Empire as an example, Stroppy.

I wasn't sure whether my point would be weaker without an example, or weaker with a 12 or so year old game as an example.

[Phar]

GTA4 had a lot of that scripted ****e when doing car chases, some missions you'd be able to shoot up a car no problem, then one mission in particular springs to mind, during one chase I emptied all my ammo into the enemies car with no effect, managed to keep up with the car for about 3 minutes only for a scripted event to happen where it crashes into a water fountain. What a load of sh*t I thought.

[abigsmurf]

Kingdom Hearts 2 had a good mix of scripted and general beating up for some battles but fell victim to heavy scripting on others (GET UP ON THE HYDRA'S BACK). Few things have gotten me as annoyed as "dance water dance" in recent times though. That's probably the worst example of putting forced events into boss fights.

[cutmymilk]

GTA4 had a lot of that scripted ****e when doing car chases, some missions you'd be able to shoot up a car no problem, then one mission in particular springs to mind, during one chase I emptied all my ammo into the enemies car with no effect, managed to keep up with the car for about 3 minutes only for a scripted event to happen where it crashes into a water fountain. What a load of sh*t I thought.

Yeah, but I did manage to get that car to crash before the fountain by shooting out the tyres. As soon as it crashed I failed the mission. Imagine my surprise!

[fallenangle]

This discussion reminds me of my worst final boss experience in the PS version of Shadow Man, a great game but technically badly messed up. Typical sort of fight where you initially attack to cause a transformation, then use a gun to physically damage him in that form and when he's stunned you can use your 'magic' attacks to suck his HP.

Only problem was the fight was totally glitched: sometimes he wouldn't transform, other times he couldn't be stunned and you'd use up all your ammo. The weirdest was when I blew his first form to bits before the transformation and was left locked in the empty room with no way out.

The game simply couldn't be completed but I didn't know that. I assumed it was me and that there was some scripted sequence or trick I just hadn't understood. I kept on plugging away for hours before giving up

Only when I played the DC version, which had a slightly different design did I get to finish that surpringly easy fight and the game.

[rmoxon]

I may be stating the obvious but I think it depends on the game. For instance Dead Rising had bosses that you just had to shoot 600 times but to be honest i dont think that went very well with the actual mechanics of the game, which wernt really designed for that type of action, and so the bosses were just not that fun.

I love to mindlessly shoot things as much as the next person but I'm also open to variety and gameplay that actualy goes with the game its attached too.

[BaudAttitude]

I hated the re-done T-rex fight in Tomb Raider Anniversary for this very reason; it went from OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL IS THAT THING BANG BANG BANG to QTE, wait, dodge it a lot, and eventually it says "you know, you're right, I AM lame" and kills itself out of sheer frustration.

[fallenangle]

I hated the re-done T-rex fight in Tomb Raider Anniversary for this very reason; it went from OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL IS THAT THING BANG BANG BANG to QTE, wait, dodge it a lot, and eventually it says "you know, you're right, I AM lame" and kills itself out of sheer frustration.

Yes, they totally blew that iconic boss fight in TR: A - the worst part of an otherwise mostly rather good reworking.

[JazzFunk]

Man, Gradius 1st level boss - he just dies anyway if you wait a bit.

[Darwock]

I think a good compromise would be to allow normal shoot-the-bastard-till-he-dies kills but maybe to award more bonuses for doing it the scripted way.

Devil May Cry has already perfected this as far as I'm concerned. In DMC3 you could annihilate the bosses if you knew the timing and could get them into their 'vulnerable' position.. DMC4 made the set pieces a tad more scripted with the use of the devil bringer to trigger special attacks, but if you didn't or couldn't get the timing down then you could still shoot at them until they die.

[PrayforMojo]

I kind of knew what to expect going into the latest Call of Duty, because scripted moments and Call of Duty sort of go hand in hand. Still, it doesn't make it any less frustrating when you're presented with this brief window of opportunity to save yourself a whole world of pain, but the game won't allow it because you've got to go through a predetermined sequence first.

ARGH. RAGE. HULK. SMASH. CONTROLLER.