Edward 1Jumping in Video Games
September 27th 2010 02:49
Jumping is an integral part of adventure games, without it; we would not have the platform genre. How would we feel if we couldn't jump over the first goomba in Super Mario Bros? It would be impossible to get past the first screen!
I'm not a programmer, but jumping mechanics seem to be a challenge for most developers and greatly affects the experience of a game. A great game would make you feel like error made is your own. As epic as God of War 3 was, sometimes jumping can be unresponsive. Mega Man was renowned for its near-impossible platform levels, but jumping is intuitive.
Some games don't even use a jump button. I'm looking at you Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid and Mass Effect. Usually in these games jumping is an action command, or an automatic action. Zelda and Assassin's Creed made jumping easy by initiated a jump as soon as you run to an edge of a platform.
Not having a jump button is a gameplay choice which can emphasis other actions, and dictate how we play in the game world. I could not image a scene in Metal Gear Solid where Snake is jumping like a mad man for no apparent reason. It would have broken whatever tone creator Hideo Kojima intended to show.
I like jumping, even when it is command sensitive or when it just automatically happens. Most in-game deaths are associated with jumping or falling into traps. A game’s quality can be measured by how responsive controls are, especially when jumping across platforms. Now that I've confessed about how much I like jumping, I'm going off to squash more goombas with my body mass.
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