Trigger Happy
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for which one simply has to find a rusty old key.
(Indeed, having traveled far from the austere
nearperfection of its original incarnation, Tomb Raider
III boasts many instructive examples of design
incoherence.) In direct contrast, Quake III incorporates
the hilarious but highly coherent idea of
“rocketjumping.” You’ve got a rocket-launcher. If you
point it at the floor and then fire as you jump, you’ll be
catapulted much higher into the air by the recoil of your
foolishly potent weapon. Eminently reasonable.
Incoherence of function is more serious. In many
games one encounters “single-use” objects, such as a
magic book that only works in a particular location or a
cigarette lighter that can only be used to illuminate a
certain room. Resident Evil typifies this lazy approach
to game design, with all manner of special scrolls,
gems, books and other things that are used once as
puzzle-solving tokens and then forgotten about. Tomb
Raider’s rocket-launcher fails on this count too,
because its use is artificially restricted in the game. If a
game designer chooses to give the player a special
object or weapon, it ought to work consistently and
reliably through all appropriate circumstances in the
game, or the believably unreal illusion is shattered.
