I have never been a fan of jumping puzzles. They are the most annoying game mechanic ever. You know, the puzzles you spend an hour trying to get to the top of, then make one miniscule mistake and you go tumbling to your death and or lose an hour more of your life getting back up to the spot from which you fell.
Popular and annoying in the 8 and 16 bit eras of gaming where Sonic and Mario ruled, the annoyances have returned in 3D fps games such as Crackdown.
Today
Newbcakes and I ran through the last few bosses of Crackdown in Sai-Gen and Volk. The kingpin bosses of the two islands were on top of towers, reachable only by platforms. The player must jump from platform to platform and time their next jumps so they dont fall into the lake, and we were getting pissed off. Time after time, ending up in the lake, it was balls.
So many possibilities for screwing up exist in 3D. Angle, velocity, rockets knocking you off, a Z axis and not being able to see the ground add more layers of complexity. On top of that, if you hit a pixel of geometry anywhere, you lose all momentum and fall to the ocean; wasting the time you should be out shooting bad guys.
There is no point to this, game developers! Ladders are a much more efficient use of players time. Anyways, it isn't fun.
