Me and a friend were playing Neverwinter Nights 2 together. We had gotten pretty far in the original campaign, when we had this epiphany: we were playing a role playing game, but our character builds were far from roleplaying. We had done what zeroand09 calls "breaking the game". We had looked at all the rules and had decided how to best optimize our characters. Instead of playing a Wizard, I was playing a Wizard/Fighter combo that allowed me to cast any arcane spell without any armor penalties. For those untrained out there: this allowed me to be super overpowered. I could cast all my wizard spells, and still wear the best armor and shields.
Although sometimes referred to as "breaking the game", I utilize a method that I have perfected over the years. I call it "optimizing the game". Sometimes, yes, my characters get so powerful that I am beyond what the game was intended for and it ceases to be fun. But, most of the time it allows me to enjoy extremely hard content at a moderate difficulty.
As part of this blog, I will frequently have a segment called "Breaking Games" where I will attempt to explain loopholes and workarounds that I find.
WARNING: This will change your gameplay forever. Once you know how to "break" a game, it takes EXTREME willpower not to do it every playthrough.
It destroys the spirit of the game. What fun is there without a challenge. Then again, I just spent an hour buying and selling to the same vendor in Fable...
ReplyDeleteIt depends on your outlook towards the game. From my viewpoint, trying to "break" a game is the challenge. Anyone can beat it by following the story. Along the same lines, anyone can input up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start and destroy the original Contra with infinite lives. However, to exploit a game withing the confines of the programmer's intent, now that takes talent.
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