Post 5: Game Balance

Game balancing is one of the most important parts of a game. It’s important that a game be balanced or everything is thrown out of whack. Usually developers do a good job of this, but there’s always that one stupid little character or weapon that sneaks through that’s really, really broken.

A good example would be the M16 in Call of Duty 4.

What you can't see are the masses of dead bodies in its wake.

This gun has no sway, absolute minimum recoil and you can basically one-hit kill someone with a single burst. Use of this gun online results in people screaming at you and calling you a noob.

Aren’t games FUN?

Honestly, you’d think the developers would have seen this coming. A gun that kills in one hit with like no recoil and is very easily aimable? Way to go, you guys. You really upped the standards for game balance on that one.

Now that I’ve sated all you white XBox Live Rock Band/Gears of War/Call of Duty/Shooter Dude/Generic FPS 3000 lovers, I’m gonna move into much more Asian terrain.

WHY HELLO THERE, STREET FIGHTER 2

Man, there were wayyy too many of them.

In Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, you could fight a secret boss character called Akuma (or Gouki in Japan) if you managed to get all the way to the final boss fight without using a single continue. Then he would jump into the ring, do some crazy attack to M. Bison (Who was supposed to be the end boss) and then fight you.

And he was unbelieveably, ridiculously broken.

This is him reaching down to rip your face off.

First things first: The guy could throw a fireball in the air. This meant that getting close to him was near impossible, not to mention the sheer comboability of it was crazy. Also, he could combo a Hurricane Kick into a Dragon Punch, which was practically a guaranteed dizzy. And to top it all off, he was faster and stronger than every other character.

Why must the developers create characters like this? There’s no way they would ever be allowed in tournament play. They’re just there for the sake of being unbelievably broken, and honestly I find that kind of stupid. Akuma is banned in every major tournament, and in the ones he’s not banned in, he’s only used by scrubs who get destroyed early on.

One of the worst offenders on the entire list is Marvel vs Capcom 2. It’s one of the most unbalanced games ever created. The top four characters are ridiculously overpowered, capable of pulling off infinite combos with ease, looping super moves over and over or in general being really fast and ridiculously powerful. You rarely see anyone who isn’t in the top 10 in tournament play, and Roll, the worst character in the game, is so bad that she has a tier completely to herself and is basically never played, unless you count that epically hilarious match with Justin Wong vs Sinity.

The fun starts at 6:22.

The problem with having unbalanced characters is that after a while, the matches are no longer fun to watch. You keep seeing someone execute j.LKxxj.LPxxj.MKxxj.MP repeat into Cr. HP over and over and over again and the matches turn ridiculously boring. Once a person is stuck in that combo, they’re doomed, and the suspense is gone.

Finally is this dude named Zeus from Defense of the Ancients, a mod of Warcraft 3.

That's him on the left with the hammer.

Basically, he’s one of the selectable heroes you can control. According to Tiffany,  his special power is that he can hit anyone on the map. Anywhere. Even if he’s nowhere near them. Considering that this game is basically PvP, that’s more broken than, well, Akuma. Why do they insist on making characters like this? .________.”

Bah.

Now that you’ve read (Or skimmed, or skipped) this article, is bubble tea the greatest drink in existence? Why or why not? Are you an idiot for saying no? Why? There’s no why not in the second part.