Live. Play. Design.

I just finished playing the demo for Wet, and I was underwhelmed; too much flash, not enough substance.  Also, there's way too much bullet time.

Bullet time is one of those features that, when it came out, seemed like the best thing ever.  Really, it doesn't add much as a gameplay mechanic.  Slowing down time is "cool," but what does that really allow players to do?  Well, it allows them to shoot more accurately, at least within the context of the game world.  What kind of new challenges does this allow us designers to give the player?  Putting more enemies in the room?  What else?  That's the problem with bullet time.

Wet exacerbates this problem by auto-aiming for the player.  What else is left for the player to do?  Sit and watch as the character on screen mows down everyone?  That doesn't seem very interesting, especially if this repeats throughout the entire game (yes, I only played the demo but even then, that was the only thing I was doing).

But my biggest beef with bullet time in games is that by allowing the player to trigger bullet time frequently and at will, the significance and drama of the mechanic is lost.  In The Matrix (you know, the movie that everyone copied bullet time from?), bullet time is used to punctuate important scenes, such as showing Neo dodge bullets, or Neo running through a hallway filled with flying debris.  Can you imagine if every single shootout in the Matrix was shot entirely in bullet time?  That would be so painful.  And that's exactly what happens when players have access to it.


So to all you designers out there: if you're thinking of adding bullet time to your game, make sure you know what you're doing!