I was at Staple!: The Independent Media Expo at the weekend. As I browsed the stalls, I wandered into range of a conversation between (I think) a guy from Dreampunk Productions, and someone who mentioned that he was a video game developer. Nothing unusual so far, there are a lot of video game developers around Austin. They were talking about a comic strip I hadn’t heard of, and the artists’ interest in making a video game about it–also not unusual.
I noticed that The Edge magazine has an article in a recent issue asking if boss fights are a cliché that should be wiped out.
My vote is an enthusiastic and wholehearted yes.
Last night I got to the penultimate battle of “Prince of Persia: Rival Swords”. After about half an hour of frustration and annoyance, I gave up. The rest of the game was great, but the last major battle (with the Vizier) exemplifies everything that’s lame and sucky about traditional “boss fights”, with some Wii-specific obnoxiousness added to the mix.