Interesting that you advocate university for getting into games. I’d advocate university for life in general (the experience, the knowledge gained, developing critical thinking) but you may be the first games degree graduate who advocates our current level of games education (in Britain).
Everyone else has told me that design courses are very generic, not very focused, with too much time spent on loose theory with few case studies and not enough hands-on development, and that the practical/technical courses are also too generalised, too basic and out of touch with current-day industry practices; not to mention being taught either by experts who have no teaching skills or teachers who have been out of the loop for too long to claim to have the necessary technical expertise.
That’s the UK specifically, mind. I hear the situation is far better in the US and certain parts of Europe, such as the Nordic countries. So how does Brunel compare to the general experience people seem to be having?
Funny, I’m currently playing through Secret of Mana at the moment with two mates, though we’re making slow progress because we have to wait for a day that we’re all free to play it. My friends tell me we have barely scratched the surface.
My favourite feature has got to be the weapon charge system (you hold down a button to do up to 100% damage, and hold it longer to charge up a higher level attack), taking 1 button and 1 weapon and giving 9 different attacks without it being complicated in the slightest, not to mention the depth of hitting an enemy with a <100% charged-attack just to make them flinch long enough for your ally to land a fully-charged attack. Do any other games have this? If not why not? It’s ace!
I’d also be tempted to say it’s the first example of a ‘drop-in, drop-out’ co-op system. I know arcade machines had drop-in for 2P, but I can’t think of any that had drop-out. It’s quite refreshing to be able to go grab a round of beers while the AI takes control of my character in-between new areas.
Despite rumors to the contrary, our series of staff interviews did not, in fact, win the lottery and emigrate to a warm, sandy beach in the Carribbean. Here to prove it is our very latest installment featuring none other than Designer of Games John ‘Nifty’ Molloy who, prior to joining Splash Damage, game-designed away at Lionhead Studios on Fable II and its downloadable content. He’s now part of Brink’s design team and wields a variety of deadly tools including Microsoft Word and Excel to make sure Things Are As They Need To Be.
