Game worlds are getting too big. Sometimes the journey isn't better than the destinat

April 17th, 2012, 13:20 Posted By: wraggster

Let's get this straight: I love game maps. Not, to be clear, the ones you get on your telly when you press Start or whatever.
And where I press the button that closes the map when what I actually wanted to do was zoom in. Every. Damn. TIME. No, I mean the ones that are altogether scribblier and wonkier: your very own makeshift maps, doodled on a used envelope, a torn-off sheet of A4 pad or (less frequently) the back of the cat.
<figure style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px currentColor; width: 620px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); text-transform: none; line-height: 21px; text-indent: 0px; letter-spacing: normal; clear: both; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; word-spacing: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; float: none; display: block; white-space: normal; position: relative; orphans: 2; widows: 2; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class="article-image article-image-alt article-image-620"></figure>There's an amazing collection of handmade maps on - of all places - the online forum of Arizona prog-rock band Minibosses. Metroid and Zelda's worlds are things of beauty and wonder when they're made of felt tip pen, illegible scribbles and giant coffee mug stains, and stitched together with Sellotape squares. These days, floaty 'this way!' arrows in games have made map-making partly redundant - but we all still put pencil to paper from time to time.That's all very nice, you're thinking, but where's the rant? It's right here. Because what works me up into a dribbling rage is seeing maps that lack two very important words: 'teleport point'.
Game worlds have got big. Bigger than the biggest things you can think of: elephants, or great big massive birds. Running across these huge worlds can take hours - but that hasn't stopped some dark-hearted developers denying us the ability to skip travel, forcing us instead to march zombie-like for miles in the name of 'realism'.
So let us state for the record Gaming Manifesto point four: let us go where we want, when we want. I don't like having to trudge back and forth between warp portals (Metroid). I resent waiting half the game to be able to fly about (Pokémon). Remember 2006's Driver: Parallel Lines, with its 200 square miles of realistic New York? Lovely - except that the realistic 15-minute drive between missions made us chew our own eyes out with boredom. Our own eyes!

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