I rented Red Dead Redemption the day before yesterday, in an attempt to try out a possible review format (which you will likely see later on when my rental is done and I have time to write a good enough review of it). I'm playing the game, all goes smooth like, and then, I get mauled by a cougar. Immediately, my screen goes completely red with blotches of blood. I know I'm near death, and I try to get away, only to run straight into the cougar, screen goes black, dead (or rather, DEAD to further adequately recall the experience).
Knowing this is cougar country, I avoid that spot and decide I'm going to go shoot up some gang members. Winchester Repeater in tow, boom goes the rifle, dead goes the gang member. Repeat as necessary, sometimes getting shot, then regenerating automatically with no problems. Again, red screen, blood blotches, but since getting shot by a rifle is nowhere near as life threatening as a cougar (or so the game tells me), I can casually stroll by, and shoot up a storm.
In that game (and in most other games where you do not have a heads-up display of your health), the more you are hit, the more your screen changes, often times it grows redder because that's the color of blood and generally represents health. This is good as it represents how difficult it is to perform an action while injured, even though I could shoot just fine, run just fine or even dance the macarena if I was so inclined. Just that it'd be behind a red screen where I can't see jack.
The problem is, the moment you get hit by a big one, you can't see anything. In my above examples, what changed is simple : The hit from the cougar brought me down to 1 HP (or the equivalent, meaning screen goes red and you can barely make out anything) and the rifle brought me down to about half my health, so I could easily identify the perpetrator and make sure to return the favor in his mustache.
This is supposed to enhance the realism in two ways : The above mentioned fact that doing anything with a bullet in your chest is slightly more difficult and because your immersion isn't interrupted by some sort of health meter. However, why would our immersion be ruined by a health meter when you can just hide behind a rock and regenerate faster than Wolverine? I cannot say. It also has a hindering effect in that if you get injured, you can't see who hit you even if they are right in front of you, so you can't adequately defend yourself. So, if you get hit, chances are you will die. If that's what the developers wanted, why not have a "get shot/mauled by cougar, you die" health and stop with the whole regeneration thing?
Bitmob, I am baffled!
(Please note that the above was written by a dinosaur, the Tyrannosaurus Hat, that still games on a SDTV. Your mileage may vary.)
