How many boss fights has the average gamer partaken in? I’ve
been playing video games for over thirty years, so I’d say that I’ve taken part
in a fair few. Boss fights, end-of-level-bosses, the big baddie, call them what
you will; they’re there to offer a challenge and help advance the story.
Ask any gamer and they’ll easily regale you with tales of
the hardest, the zaniest, or the most inventive and enjoyable boss fights of
their gamer career. They may come in a variety of shapes and sizes, but they
all have common elements. There are patterns to be learnt and exploited, weak
spots to be targeted. There’s trial and error, repetition, frustration, and
elation. This week I encountered the shortest and easiest boss fights I’ve ever come across. It was truly bizarre.
When Deus Ex: Human Revolution was released people found the
boss fights to be at odds with the general stealthy tone of the game. They were
flat out action segments that didn’t gel with the rest of the sneaky experience.
As it turned out it was because these sections of the game were farmed out to a
different developer, which helped explain the disconnect felt. What it doesn’t
explain is why the second boss took me all of ten seconds to defeat. And eight
of those seconds were the animation of my character unleashing a special move.
Deus Ex’s protagonist Adam Jensen is an augmented
human/cyborg capable of incredible technological upgrades that make him
something akin to Solid Snake meets Robocop. One of these upgrades is the
typhoon weapon system, which at the press of a button sees Jensen whirl around
and unleash a volley of deadly projectiles in a 360 degree arc. Upon performing
this assault you witness a four second animation of the carnage being unleashed.
As is typical before any end-of-level boss fight there is a cut-scene that sets up the fight. I watched the cut-scene, and then the fight
began. The boss, a female cyborg, started to rush at me. Instinctively I
pressed the button that activated the typhoon attack. I watched the animation
deal her untold damage. Control was returned to me, she stumbled, wounded. I
shrugged, pressed the button again, and watched the same animation unfold. The
boss was hit with the projectiles and fell down, dead. Cue another cut-scene that
told me where I’d be going to next. Achievement unlocked, and I was ushered on to
the next level. It took you longer to read that than the entire ‘fight’ did in
real time.
Normally I would be annoyed at the lazy, crappy design of
this boss fight, but in reality I was glad it was over quickly. It wasn’t that
much of a problem. I was enjoying the game for what it was. I wasn’t interested
in a lengthy shootout with some random boss. I was quite happy to continue
sneaking my merry way through air vents.
After some more enjoyable sneaky shenanigans, and another
boss fight that wasn’t particularly taxing or interesting, and not even worth
remarking on, I got to the final boss at the end of the game. This one I dispatched
by merely shooting with a laser beam for five seconds or so. But I had to vault
over a few barriers first in order to avoid some sentry turrets, so that ended
up making this stunning battle last longer than the previous record setting
encounter, and thereby made it far less impressive. Although defeating the very
end boss in twelve seconds could be seen as even more ridiculous, as the end
boss is supposed to be the hardest of the lot. But at least this easy final
boss let me get to the credits a lot quicker, and these were unique.
The credits featured photos of the Eidos Montreal development
team throughout the various stages of development. Sometimes they were in the
office working. Sometime they were having meetings filled with smiles. Mostly
they were partaking in fun team building activities like table-hockey, or football
in the park. And drinking. Lots of drinking. Seriously, someone had a drink in
their hand in about 75% of these pictures. So much drinking. No wonder they had
to farm out those boss fights.
28 down, 22 to go.
