Gaming Confessions & Blasphemy

Scratched wrote:

AC1 is really the kind of game someone should shamelessly rip-off and fix it's flaws, especially with the new Hitman getting mixed reviews.

Someone did, and they called it Assassin's Creed 2.

nel e nel wrote:
Scratched wrote:

AC1 is really the kind of game someone should shamelessly rip-off and fix it's flaws, especially with the new Hitman getting mixed reviews.

Someone did, and they called it Assassin's Creed 2.

HA! I really liked AC1 but it did get a bit repetitive. I should have tried it with the locator thing turned off as they mentioned in that Gamasutra article. That being said, I still really enjoyed AC2 and Brotherhood as well. People tend to hate on the Desmond stuff. I always found that to be the most interesting part.

CptGlanton wrote:

You should understand Kristen Bell voices a character in the game. It's not like you're actually talking to her.

au contraire mon frere

IMAGE(http://cache.kotaku.com/assets/resources/2007/11/bell_assassins.jpg)

Ungh, gross.

Can't unsee it now.

Damn those eyes look creepy in that shot, too close together or something.
The computer version I mean, the normal one is just fine....

The AC one looks like she's just about to start drooling.

It was a two-fold issue (the creepy, dead eyes) that I felt was improved upon with the second game. First, there's so little Ambient Occlusion in the face that her whole appearance is generally pale and flat. This also had the adverse effect of flattening the eyes, and removing the shadows around them that would otherwise contrast the bright specularity that a wet eye should have. So not only are they flat-looking, they're also dry-looking, which only added to the dead appearance.

Otherwise, the above image isn't actually an in-game model-- more likely, it's a touched-up image that was WIP for her texture map. Look at the ears and jaw-- there's no polygonal edges whatsoever. Plus, the edges around the hair were very obviously deleted with the lasso-tool.

A better example would probably be this:

IMAGE(http://blogs.ocweekly.com/heardmentality/Lucy%20Stillman%20Kristen%20Bell.jpg)

Okay, enough AC derail!

Another confession: I can't stand any Final Fantasy game after FFIX. Also, JRPGs are too juvenile for my tastes anymore.

WipEout wrote:

Also, JRPGs are too juvenile for my tastes anymore.

Playin' the wrong ones, my man.

I swear that I'm the only one that liked Revelations more than Brotherhood.

Blind_Evil wrote:
WipEout wrote:

Also, JRPGs are too juvenile for my tastes anymore.

Playin' the wrong ones, my man.

I agree. Plus, Western games. I mean, how much more juvenile can you get than stuff that sounds like it was created by an eighth grader. It's like people saw the Grim Shado stuff from Penny Arcade and thought it was a good idea.

Blind_Evil wrote:
WipEout wrote:

Also, JRPGs are too juvenile for my tastes anymore.

Playin' the wrong ones, my man.

ccesarano wrote:

I swear that I'm the only one that liked Revelations more than Brotherhood.

Blind_Evil wrote:
WipEout wrote:

Also, JRPGs are too juvenile for my tastes anymore.

Playin' the wrong ones, my man.

I agree. Plus, Western games. I mean, how much more juvenile can you get than stuff that sounds like it was created by an eighth grader. It's like people saw the Grim Shado stuff from Penny Arcade and thought it was a good idea.

Oh, don't worry-- I'm not really into mayn WRPGs either It really depends, honestly. I say JRPGs are too juvenile for me, but then I loved FFI-FFIX, ChronoTrigger, ChronoCross, Suikoden, Xenogears, the first Xenosaga (never finished the second), the classic Working Designs/SegaCD RPGs (Vay, Lunar, Popful Mail, etc). I also enjoy me some Fallout 3 and Elder Scrolls, though I could never really get into WoW or D&D-style games, for the most part. I'm just fickle, I guess

I think largely the issue I tend to have with any JRPGs I've played since I was in high school is that they're almost always about a 14 year old (give or take a couple years) thrust into adulthood through some over-the-top rite of passage. That, and there's a great deal of Japanese culture that I just can't connect with at best, and personally find abhorrent at worst. So games like the Persona series are just right out.

But please-- in all honesty, recommend me some games that are not along said lines. I seem to remember there was one about Chopin that looked interesting; but I recall there were some Japanese tropes that turned me off the game, IIRC.

WipEout wrote:

I seem to remember there was one about Chopin that looked interesting; but I recall there were some Japanese tropes that turned me off the game, IIRC.

Eternal Sonata? It's pretty terrible.

WipEout wrote:

But please-- in all honesty, recommend me some games that are not along said lines. I seem to remember there was one about Chopin that looked interesting; but I recall there were some Japanese tropes that turned me off the game, IIRC.

You wouldn't like Eternal Sonata based on what you've said. I think you would like The Last Story, but you'd need to be open to playing a Wii game, and that's a stretch for people nowadays. It's my 2012 Game of the Year, I can say with all confidence now, and that's not because I'm a weirdo that only likes JRPGs or Wii games. It's just the best put together game. Resonance of Fate and Nier on 360 are also definitely worth a look, and neither are very trope-y. Lost Odyssey is the best Final Fantasy game since Final Fantasy IX, IMO.

muttonchop wrote:
WipEout wrote:

I seem to remember there was one about Chopin that looked interesting; but I recall there were some Japanese tropes that turned me off the game, IIRC.

Eternal Sonata? It's pretty terrible.

The battle system is actually really interesting, but the game is best played skipping pretty much every single cut-scene . Except maybe for the one with the revolutionary etude in it, 'cause that song's boss regardless of the surrounding circumstances.

WipEout wrote:

But please-- in all honesty, recommend me some games that are not along said lines.

Nier. Nier Nier Nier Nier Nier.

Resonance of Fate. The Last Story. Lost Odyssey may be stretching it just a tad, but the memories are worth it IMO. Tales of Vesperia is worth a look (he's easily in his mid-20s, and very disaffected). Final Fantasy XIII, IMO, fits your bill very well, and f*ck the haters. But it's perhaps the most unabashedly Japanese on the list, and has a few affectations that can be odd for westerners (like frequent use of "tch" and falling down on one's knees repeatedly to show remorse, etc.).

Have a DS/3DS? Strange Journey is definitely worth a mention, though it's pretty dungeon-crawly. Definitely no teen angst involved, at any rate. Radiant Historia is also worth a look (he's gotta be 24 or so ;)).

It's really a shame that a teenage/high school setting is part of what puts you off, because the Persona games really are some of the most adult games out there. Not in a T&A sense, but in a mature look at really difficult themes sense. The high school stuff is a veneer, but the real meat of the story is something different altogether.

the first Xenosaga (never finished the second),

I'm with you there. The first was so good, and the second was so...something. At any rate, if you still have a functioning PS2, it's worth looking for some of the sidecar Atlus stuff: Digital Devil Saga 1 and 2, Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, Odin Sphere, and some other assorted detritus like Drakensang (from the makers of Nier) and whatnot.

Minarchist wrote:
muttonchop wrote:
WipEout wrote:

I seem to remember there was one about Chopin that looked interesting; but I recall there were some Japanese tropes that turned me off the game, IIRC.

Eternal Sonata? It's pretty terrible.

The battle system is actually really interesting, but the game is best played skipping pretty much every single cut-scene . Except maybe for the one with the revolutionary etude in it, 'cause that song's boss regardless of the surrounding circumstances.

The battle system is interesting, but they don't do anything with it. The game only has a handful of different enemy models, so most of the light/dark creature transformations are just palette swaps or completely arbitrary things like a rat monster turning into a floating fish whenever it stands in a shadow. There are a couple maps with moving shadows, but that's the only time in the entire game that they do anything new with the light/dark mechanic. The game is one mildly interesting combat mechanic and some decent art direction wrapped up in an incomprehensible story and some of the worst cutscenes I have ever seen. If the demo's still available you could just play that and experience everything good the game has to offer.

Another great rpg is live a live. It was for the snes and damn it it's fantastic. It's hard to describe really. It's about 7 rpgs put together and all of them have their own unique twist to them. Hell a few of them can be beaten in a single battle. It has something for everyone: Western, Space Horror, Ninja, Street Fighter, Ancient China, Mecha, and a few others. Western and space horror are my favorite, they have like two fights between them. Great game.

Speaking of jrpg's I mostly steer clear of them and stick to western RPGs but I did once play through Star Ocean 4: Last hope and really enjoyed it. That is to say I played it in bursts and took a break whenever the fighting got too repetitive. I just loved all the Science Fiction tropes and some of the cut scenes between Mericle and Sarah are hilarious.

The fighting system is pretty good. Within each battle you can take control of any of your party and actually run around in real time trying to preform special critical moves, rack up combos, block and generally it all feels a lot more strategic than the usual pick an action and then watch each person step forward and attack in turn.

I'm becoming more and more of a mainstream bro-gamer as time goes by. I don't care about the politics behind the game. I just want to shoot digital people in their digital faces.

I've lost most of my drive and interest in competitive gaming. COD? BLOPS? Halo? Gears? No thanks. I'll play the story on a low, or reasonable, setting and play any co-op multiplayer. I've discovered I'm a relax-gamer, which explains why I put hours and hours into Animal Crossing, but never got into fighting games or RTS's.

I thought Saint's Row 3 was a below average game. The only reasons I finished it were because I played through co-op and was unemployed at the time. Deckers Die kind of annoyed me. Especially the "fake lag" part. Funny on paper isn't always good in practice.

I haven't liked a Burnout game since crash junctions were removed.

I will buy (or not buy) a game based on it's rag doll physics. I loved the first Flatout game for the Ragdoll Olympics where you could fire the driver out of the car. I can go back to GTA 4 any day and run over/shoot pedestrians for hours. I watched a bear slowly roll down a hill for 10 minutes in Oblivion. I have a save spot in Max Payne 2 that I occasionally would go back to where you shoot someone and he falls down through scaffolding. I'd reload that and do it over and over and over.

I've never completed a Zelda game.

I teared up at the end of Earthbound.

I think Valve is just a pretty good company with very good values. They're a brilliant business. Give people what they want for a good value and they'll fall over themselves to give you their money? Who knew that would work, right?

Not finishing your game before you release it seems to be coming back into fashion.

strangederby wrote:
Alien Love Gardener wrote:

It might sound awesome, but in practice it's awful.

...In your opinion.

Well, obviously.

strangederby wrote:
kazooka wrote:

The way they explain the interface is brilliant. If it were just a "medieval murder simulator" as I've seen suggested elsewhere, people would be screaming about invisible walls, weird achievement non-sequitors and gaps in the narrative. But the sci-fi overlay explains that stuff, and makes all the necessary gamification seamless by giving you an in-narrative explanation for it.

Fully agree. It's one of the best rationalisations of game mechanics I've ever seen.

It's kind of clever, yeah, but I also found it pretty distancing. The animus flashing and syncronizing and missing memories as level barriers is basically a big flashing reminder that I'm playing a videogame. Unless an interface is truly intrusive and awful it's not really a barrier for immersion for me, and explaining the interface by painting the fourth wall is far more distracting than just presenting it without any explanation.

I had the same reaction to the sanctuary in Fable III. Yeah, clever solution, but it's a solution in search of a problem.

Higgledy wrote:

Not finishing your game before you release it seems to be coming back into fashion.

There's nothing really controversial about this one. That is, unless you are the one responsible for this trend. Are you hiding something from us?

Grubber788 wrote:
Higgledy wrote:

Not finishing your game before you release it seems to be coming back into fashion.

There's nothing really controversial about this one. That is, unless you are the one responsible for this trend. Are you hiding something from us?

No. It's nothing to do with me. Honest!

(This post may be patched at a later date. Internet connectivity required.)

I thought about it some more, and I'll restate my thing:

Videogames are one of the greater meaningless wastes of time, especially if enjoyed alone and if you don't get to share anything interesting with anyone after playing them, or if your perspective about reality remains unchanged. Playing a solo mmorpg is, I think, the apex of this: you engage with systems designed to drip-feed you stimuli you get addicted to, while being devoid of any purpose other than to entertain you. At best, they're a really f*cking slow and anesthetized way to learn interesting stuff about being human.

In short: videogames are fine, like junk food is fine, and are the reflex of one, maybe two, who knows, three? generations that live and feel more and more digitally instead of physically.

Re: the discussion about JRPGs being almost all teenagers-coming-of-age, I also wish that there was more variety. Not just in JRPGs, but in general. I wish that "mature" gaming didn't only mean "this game has lots of blood and guts and probably swearing and T&A" but that there were more actually mature games that deal with themes like long-term relationships and parenthood. I guess that sounds kind of boring but it would be interesting to me.

ccesarano wrote:

I swear that I'm the only one that liked Revelations more than Brotherhood.

Blind_Evil wrote:
WipEout wrote:

Also, JRPGs are too juvenile for my tastes anymore.

Playin' the wrong ones, my man.

I agree. Plus, Western games. I mean, how much more juvenile can you get than stuff that sounds like it was created by an eighth grader. It's like people saw the Grim Shado stuff from Penny Arcade and thought it was a good idea.

I dunno man, two wands is pretty pimp.

oMonarca wrote:

I thought about it some more, and I'll restate my thing:

Videogames are one of the greater meaningless wastes of time, especially if enjoyed alone and if you don't get to share anything interesting with anyone after playing them, or if your perspective about reality remains unchanged. Playing a solo mmorpg is, I think, the apex of this: you engage with systems designed to drip-feed you stimuli you get addicted to, while being devoid of any purpose other than to entertain you. At best, they're a really f*cking slow and anesthetized way to learn interesting stuff about being human.

In short: videogames are fine, like junk food is fine, and are the reflex of one, maybe two, who knows, three? generations that live and feel more and more digitally instead of physically.

As someone that has spent most of their life wanting to create entertainment and things that entertain, I simultaneously agree and disagree. Over-indulgence in things can be disastrous, but there's issue I take with things being a waste of time. It all depends on the purpose.

I know people that see films constantly, but never allow themselves to be challenged by them. They come back with no greater thought or feeling than "good" or "bad". They don't try to analyze or learn from it in any way, shape, or form. Now, I understand films as a way to just relax, but it seems a bit troublesome if you're going to devote a lot of your time to watching them without at least trying to glean something substantial from it. Trying to figure out the themes, for example. What you liked or did not like.

Same goes for video games or books in my mind. Plus, I feel video games and books exercise your brain. Books in the imagination and vocabulary, video games in problem solving.

However, playing through the Walking Dead game, I would not want to declare that experience as a waste of time. Being thrown into situations that I am emotionally involved in, that I am forced to sit and think or to be quick on my feet, I think it is a way to experience a story in a great way. You get to understand the character better, and in some ways may even learn something more about yourself.

Are these replacements for going out into the world and finding new experiences? No. I still go out with friends and hang out with real people. I'm experimenting with watching Sunday football with friends that enjoy that game, and because I'm with friends it is not a waste of time.

Similarly, some of the conversations and discussions I've gotten from these forums, conversations I only have because I play video games, are also not a waste of time.

These things are only a waste of time if you are looking at the world in a sort of Protestant Work Ethic mentality, I think. But if something makes me happy without actually doing harm to myself or those around me, then it is not a waste of time because it made me happy.

You would be surprised how much of my reading strength I would attribute to RPGs during the NES and SNES era. Books were interesting, sure, but worlds I got to interact in?

ccesarano wrote:

I know people that see films constantly, but never allow themselves to be challenged by them. They come back with no greater thought or feeling than "good" or "bad". They don't try to analyze or learn from it in any way, shape, or form. Now, I understand films as a way to just relax, but it seems a bit troublesome if you're going to devote a lot of your time to watching them without at least trying to glean something substantial from it. Trying to figure out the themes, for example. What you liked or did not like.

This reminds me of a blog post I once read, complaining about people who put "movies" or "TV" as an interest or hobby on social sites, when most of the people who put "movies" as a hobby known pretty much nothing about filmmaking, movies made before they were born, directors, etc. The complaint was that if you're not actually thinking about movies and filmmaking in a critical way, then "movies" are not a hobby of yours any more than "sleeping" is a hobby.

Probably most people consume video games the way they consume movies, just as a way to relax and fill time. But if you're spending your time studying game development, thinking about what makes a game successful (and the different criteria for game success), etc. then it can be a real hobby with merit.

Why is "watching movies" or "playing video games" not a real hobby with merit? I can see the point that without the verb you don't know facet of movies or video games they enjoy, but why isn't enjoying media a valid hobby? Did the blog post address this, or just take it as a given?

Stengah wrote:

Why is "watching movies" or "playing video games" not a real hobby with merit? I can see the point that without the verb you don't know facet of movies or video games they enjoy, but why isn't enjoying media a valid hobby? Did the blog post address this, or just take it as a given?

I'm sick of all these fake movie girls coming in and seducing me without knowing about Orson Welles's use of chiaroscuro in Citizen Kane.

Stengah wrote:

Why is "watching movies" or "playing video games" not a real hobby with merit? I can see the point that without the verb you don't know facet of movies or video games they enjoy, but why isn't enjoying media a valid hobby? Did the blog post address this, or just take it as a given?

The basic gist is there's a difference between "I watch whatever's new in Netflix/Redbox and don't give it any thought after it's done" and someone who actually takes an interest in movies and filmmaking as a topic. There's nothing wrong with the former, but you're not really someone with an interest in movies, you just like watching movies to relax and pass time.