Gaming Confessions & Blasphemy

Well at least now this thread is off the topic of Assassin's Creed....

I've not played any Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, Halo, or AC game, nor do I have a ton of interest in doing so

These are some of the biggest sellers this generation and I have absolutely minimal interest in any of them.

I've not played a Grand Theft Auto since Vice City and I don't completely regret it

Yet, I still bought San Andreas and IV for some unknown reason... Actually, I haven't played a R* game since Vice City. (EDIT: I do have some interest in RDR, forgot about that)

I have a weird nostalgia for point n' click adventure games despite having played barely any of them...

I'm pretty sure I can count on two hands the games I've played

... and I backed the Double Fine and Sierra alum Kickstarter projects with more money than I probably should've given them

That happened. Several times :\

I enjoy some genres even though I'm absolute rubbish at them

Strategy and music games are my weak spot. I enjoy playing them but I'm really really bad at them.

I wish I could get into Bioware games, and western RPGs in general

But every time I try one I get bored in the opening (Neverwinter Nights, The Witcher) or distracted part way through (Mass Effect). JRPGs (or at least the Square-Enix ones up to the PS2 era) have no issue keeping my attention. I think I just don't have the patience for Western RPGs :\

I haven't played Final Fantasy X or later to completion

Nothing against newer games in the series, just haven't had the burning desire to really clear them out of my backlog.

If it weren't for XBLA exclusives I'd have 0 interest in the Xbox 360

End of story.

shoptroll wrote:
McIrishJihad wrote:

Shop - I'd really recommend giving Red Dead Redemption a shot. Way better story than any of the GTAs, and being set back in the west gives it a great theme and feel.

Gah, forgot about that one. Yeah, I actually did want to try it but I think it dropped off my radar since people stopped talking about it once I finally had a system that could play it.

It's a damn fine game. You may not get into it but you owe it to yourself to give it a try :).

RoutineMachine wrote:

Yay, troll thread. Me like!

There needs to be a moratorium on science-fiction/fantasy settings in games. Game settings should be more realistic.

Not that games with fantasy settings shouldn't exist, but they should be an occasional thing rather than the default. I'm convinced that far more people would be interested in gaming if the medium wasn't dominated by self-serious stories composed with goofy settings.

Sports games, Call of Duty, GTA, and Assassin's Creed are all examples of what I'm looking for in the AAA space. Abstract and cartoony settings dominate the touch market, and that is healthy.

Bioshock and The Walking Dead are examples of games with fantastic settings that are better for their grounding in reality.

Amen to that! I yearn for the game that will allow me to experience being a couple going through a midlife crisis. Not just the man, I want both perspectives.

I mentioned this in the appropriate thread, but it seems fitting to say so here:

I just lost XCOM. Yes, that's right: I lost. I saw the end failure cut-scene, and realized I had no saves far enough back to change my course and correct my mistakes.

I guess it's you and me, Easy Mode.

Counterpoint: Realistic settings are boring and lazy from an artistic standpoint and make me not want to play unless there's something else interesting going on there.

When I'm gaming, I want to have the chance to explore spaces I would never be able to explore in the real world.

I'm surprised at the mention of sports games as something anyone would like to see more of, aesthetically. They look exactly like a televised sports broadcast. Making your sports video game look exactly like a football game on ESPN is an achievement of sorts, but not one that I'm personally thrilled by.

Just remembered one while listening to the podcast.

Mario Kart Double Dash!! is the best Mario Kart (on console at least), including being superior to Mario Kart 64.

I will always have fond memories of Super Mario Kart and Mario Kart 64, yes. But the technology for those games has shown their age, in particular Mario 64 (as have any games on the Playstation and N64 that relied on 3D backgrounds with God awful eye-bleeding textures).

Mario Kart Double Dash!! manages to stand the test of time. It still looks good, you can tell what you're looking at, the environment feels alive and, while it did have the Blue Shell, it was not yet as common and damning as it has become in recent Mario Kart games. It is the only Mario Kart that, to this day, I can plug in, play and still have a smile on my face, succumbing to the illusion that it is a flawless experience.

I've been playing RPG's for well over twenty years and I'm still not tired of having to save the world. Having to earn money and local political intrigues I can get in real life and I play games to experience something different from that so thanks but no thanks.

ccesarano wrote:

Just remembered one while listening to the podcast.

Mario Kart Double Dash!! is the best Mario Kart (on console at least), including being superior to Mario Kart 64.

I will always have fond memories of Super Mario Kart and Mario Kart 64, yes. But the technology for those games has shown their age, in particular Mario 64 (as have any games on the Playstation and N64 that relied on 3D backgrounds with God awful eye-bleeding textures).

Mario Kart Double Dash!! manages to stand the test of time. It still looks good, you can tell what you're looking at, the environment feels alive and, while it did have the Blue Shell, it was not yet as common and damning as it has become in recent Mario Kart games. It is the only Mario Kart that, to this day, I can plug in, play and still have a smile on my face, succumbing to the illusion that it is a flawless experience.

That's not a confession, it's a KNOWN FACT™

Demyx wrote:

Counterpoint: Realistic settings are boring and lazy from an artistic standpoint and make me not want to play unless there's something else interesting going on there.

When I'm gaming, I want to have the chance to explore spaces I would never be able to explore in the real world.

They're only boring if you're slavishly recreating reality. You can get a lot of mileage out of taking a familiar setting and twisting either it or the way you experience it. Consider the electronics store in FEAR 3, and VtM: Bloodlines wouldn't have worked nearly as well if it'd been set in some fantasy world instead of dingy clubs and run-down motels.

I'm surprised we don't see more contemporary urban fantasy games, really.

Alien Love Gardener wrote:
Demyx wrote:

Counterpoint: Realistic settings are boring and lazy from an artistic standpoint and make me not want to play unless there's something else interesting going on there.

When I'm gaming, I want to have the chance to explore spaces I would never be able to explore in the real world.

They're only boring if you're slavishly recreating reality. You can get a lot of mileage out of taking a familiar setting and twisting either it or the way you experience it. Consider the electronics store in FEAR 3, and VtM: Bloodlines wouldn't have worked nearly as well if it'd been set in some fantasy world instead of dingy clubs and run-down motels.

I'm surprised we don't see more contemporary urban fantasy games, really.

Well, the Persona games are contemporary, and suburban, but not particularly realistic

That's not realism, that's magical realism. Settings that are real *except* for the fantastical elements. And that's awesome.

Sports games, Call of Duty and GTA are not that (to address the games listed in the original post). They're all fine for what they are but not something I'd like to see more of, personally. Assassin's Creed and Walking Dead certainly qualify, though, and I think those are great settings for video games. As for Bioshock I have a hard time seeing a city under the ocean inhabited by giant vengeful diver-suit men as a realistic setting at all.

No arcade racer has been able to hold my interest for longer than 30 minutes since the San Francisco Rush series died off.
Crash cams and street racing just don't give me the same thrills as sailing through the air for 500 meters on crazy ramps with the most ridiculous and hilarious racing physics model imaginable. Burnout, Need for Speed, Driver, Forza? No thank you! Bring back the Rush!

I am not at all excited about Bioshock Infinite.

Bioshock was way overrated and was a step back from the greatness that was System Shock 2. To that end, I am not looking forward to Infinite. Although the environment is intriguing, I think it's going to be more uninspired combat in boxed off areas and we'll never get to explore the city much. Hopefully I'm wrong.

I am an unapologetic Bethesda fanboy.

I never played anything pre-Morrowind. I liked Morrowind for the first-person exploration and story, but the mechanics and janky combat kept me from finishing it. And then came Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Skyrim - three of my all-time favorite games that have consumed hundreds of hours of my game-time. These games were the perfect mix of storytelling, exploration, combat and role-playing for me all wrapped in a first-person candy shell. I can acknowledge the criticms some people have of them, but they ring hollow as none of them have ever remotely affected my enjoyment of these games.

I spend more time reading stories and listening to podcasts about games than actually playing games.

More of a lament I guess. Now that I'm older, I don't have much time for games anymore. However, I'm constantly checking feeds and tagging stories all day from work. And when I'm out and about I'm always listening to podcasts on my bluetooth headset. (Yup, I'm that guy. But I don't look like a d-bag in public for talking on the phone - it's so I can tune the world out and listen to my podcasts!) Then when I get home, sometime I'm just too tired to sit up and play a game, so I read about them on my iPad in bed.

I have an Evernote list of games that I hope to play "someday" but it keeps getting longer and longer each year. I've also spent a mint on Steam and GOG games that I will probably never play.

Dyni wrote:

No arcade racer has been able to hold my interest for longer than 30 minutes since the San Francisco Rush series died off.
Crash cams and street racing just don't give me the same thrills as sailing through the air for 500 meters on crazy ramps with the most ridiculous and hilarious racing physics model imaginable. Burnout, Need for Speed, Driver, Forza? No thank you! Bring back the Rush!

You should give Split/Second and Blur a try. Both did a decent job of doing classic arcade racing in a nicer looking skin. Unfortunately, they both released within a week of each other and basically killed each other off.

I have never owned a Nintendo console other than a gameboy color, and the only thing I played was pokemon.

I feel that because of this, every time I sit down with a friend and try to play some Nintendo game it just feels weird and foreign to me, like I can see the reason people dig them, but I have no interest in anything Nintendo does.

Xbox birthed, and killed my social online gaming days

As a high school student, I got my first online gaming console, the 360. As a result, I played far too much of it, I was constantly connected to friends and we essentially would chat from dawn till dusk. Now being in college I find that gaming is my recess from playing with friends or talking to people. I will play lots of online games, but I almost never chat to them or friends while doing so because I just want to shut down and not be social for a while. I actually have set aside a whole group of friends from home because I refuse to talk to people online while gaming because I find I cant concentrate and enjoy the games fully while chatting with friends. The exception to this has been planetside 2 where i will jump in to a group and take orders, but not respond to others, i just wish to be a cog. I will compete and challenge friends in games with high score boards but it isnt direct contact or interrupt my play so its cool with me.

Adventure games may finally be becoming not terrible

The only adventure game I ever completed was The Longest Journey, only because I wanted to see if it's reputation as a great story held up and I had to do it with a FAQ guide the whole way. The "puzzle logic" was a complete turn off and frustrates me to no end. Perhaps the CIA should dump water-boarding and force the enemy to complete these brain-damaging, rage-inducing torture mazes. (I will admit some have better writing/dialogue than most games).

I'll never understand the Halo love

This franchise is somehow going to end up compared to Doom, Quake, and Half-Life and it's never done anything to deserve it other than selling lots of copies. Never have I seen a game where moving as fast as molasses in a bloom-filled environment with poorly balanced weapons, overpowered vehicles, and antiquated controls were considered positive things. It's gotten better over the years, but I still can't believe that something so regressive at the time never led people to realize the PC was already doing all of the things in Halo 1 better.

Amnesia: the Dark Descent is overrated

If I wanted to experience what a professional haunted house was like, I'd go to the ones that pop up during Halloween around here. The game is all jump scares and interaction/walking triggers. It says "immerse yourself in the game" right at the start, but then does everything it can to throw hokey game mechanics in your way. Those mechanics do everything to end up resetting your progress through death. The immortal enemy was annoying with Resident Evil 3's nemesis and it's just as annoying now. Everything you do (and don't do) ends up screwing you in some way, including fighting through the interface. At this point, I can't avoid the immersion breaking effects and it became an exercise in frustration rather than enjoyment of being spooked.

Coldtouch wrote:

Amnesia: the Dark Descent is overrated

I'll +1 that.

I love first-person games and was jazzed to play Amnesia because of all the love it was getting and the potential for such an immersive experience. Then I realized the entire game had the tiresome mechanic of running from light source to light source with limited resources for re-lighting them. I hate it when games force a mechanic on you and claim it builds tension. Then I got to the platforming level in the water where the jank of the game engine really showed its warts and I quit straight away.

I hate watching other people play video games.

Lots of people have great stories about playing single-player games as a team, or going through a narrative together with one person holding the controller. Well, unless I'm the one holding the controller/mouse, I hate it. And even then, I'm not a fan. Maybe its my inner control freak coming out, but if I'm an active participant in the game I need to be the one doing stuff, and if I'm not I'm just bored. I always hated when I had to participate in a fighting game tournament and just watch while waiting for my turn. This is also why I don't understand the appeal of E-sports.

Dysplastic wrote:

I hate watching other people play video games.

Lots of people have great stories about playing single-player games as a team, or going through a narrative together with one person holding the controller. Well, unless I'm the one holding the controller/mouse, I hate it. And even then, I'm not a fan. Maybe its my inner control freak coming out, but if I'm an active participant in the game I need to be the one doing stuff, and if I'm not I'm just bored. I always hated when I had to participate in a fighting game tournament and just watch while waiting for my turn. This is also why I don't understand the appeal of E-sports.

+1. I also hate letting other people drive a car (in real life).

Just remembered something;

I've only played ME1 and ME2. In both cases, only with MaleShep. I haven't given FemShep a chance. I know the world+dog feel that FemShep's voice acting was better than the male actor, thus delivering an overall better experience. And I don't have anything against playing lead female characters; but I really "feel" that Shepard is supposed to be played as a male character.

For the amount that the player character's gender actually matters in Mass Effect (not a lot), I think the amount of emphasis given to that choice by players is a bit overblown.

Demyx wrote:

That's not realism, that's magical realism. Settings that are real *except* for the fantastical elements. And that's awesome.

Sports games, Call of Duty and GTA are not that (to address the games listed in the original post). They're all fine for what they are but not something I'd like to see more of, personally. Assassin's Creed and Walking Dead certainly qualify, though, and I think those are great settings for video games. As for Bioshock I have a hard time seeing a city under the ocean inhabited by giant vengeful diver-suit men as a realistic setting at all.

Just a note; I put the Assassin's Creed games on the realistic list because I ignore the fantasy/sci-fi elements, and instead I just pretend it has a historical setting.

I have never enjoyed a single Blizzard game, and I've tried a lot of them, but never been able to get into them.

I've put over 3000 hours into EVE Online in the last 3 years.

The first Final Fantasy games I played were the 2 and 3 remakes on the DS. Following that, I will never play another Final Fantasy again. I can't stand the grind.
Not sure how to rationalize that with the amount of grind that's in EVE.

I will stop playing a game if there's permanent character loss. I stopped playing Fire Emblem on the GBA cold turkey because of it.
Which makes even less sense after the stakes in EVE.

I have a final confession that nobody else on the thread has posted. Nothing even close to it.

I own a PSP Go and bought it at launch.

Berzerk404 wrote:

I have a final confession that nobody else on the thread has posted. Nothing even close to it.

I own a PSP Go and bought it at launch.

You know, I'm surprised we haven't seen anyone talk about DNF pre-orders or Virtual Boy purchases.

I still hate DLC and find it to be a terrible money grab. The various bits I have gotten have almost all been supreme disappointments. This includes stuff ranging from single items to multiplayer stuff like Battlefield Bad Company 2 Vietnam. The only bit I really enjoyed was Zombie Island of Dr. Ned but that was included in the $7.50 GotY edition of Borderlands I bought.

I think Minecraft is vastly overrated, and notch is given way too much credit for being a good game designer when he essentially just copied Infiniminer and got lucky that his version of the game became so popular. I think articles that interview him for advice on good game design and how to make it in the business is like interviewing a lotto winner on how to become wealthy.

mrtomaytohead wrote:

I still hate DLC and find it to be a terrible money grab.

I'm sure there's a fair amount of "we made this extra bit and want to sell it" just as there was before it was called DLC, but I find it hard to believe the strategies behind a fair amount of DLC are wholesome now. It's a bad feeling as a gamer when you've got to tell yourself to be cynical about something when you're trying to rationalise and explain why things are the way they are, why a game and DLC are delivered the way they are.

LeetMonkey wrote:

I think Minecraft is vastly overrated, and notch is given way too much credit for being a good game designer when he essentially just copied Infiniminer and got lucky that his version of the game became so popular. I think articles that interview him for advice on good game design and how to make it in the business is like interviewing a lotto winner on how to become wealthy.

Notch himself admits he got lucky and minecraft is an oddity for how successful it is.

Berzerk404 wrote:

The first Final Fantasy games I played were the 2 and 3 remakes on the DS. Following that, I will never play another Final Fantasy again. I can't stand the grind.
Not sure how to rationalize that with the amount of grind that's in EVE.

Odd, as I feel like Final Fantasy IV can be beaten with very little-oh wait, the DS Remake? Okay yeah, that's actually harder than even the original Japanese version of the game (versus the watered down US version we got).

I feel like you could go through Final Fantasy VII without having to grind much.

I actually liked Final Fantasy VII a lot

I know that the pendulum has swung the other way and it's considered now to be a sub-par FF game, but It was my first one, and I played it for hours and hours and loved every minute of it. I didn't have an emotional breakdown when Aeris died, but it was and still is one of my favorite FF games.

I don't think there is anything wrong with restarting if you lose a guy in XCOM

Because screw games that like to destroy you for no reason other than the "random" dice roll said you should be attacked by all the aliens at 100% accuracy. I don't own XCOM yet, but when I get around to playing it, you can bet your ass that I'm going to save after every little encounter. I also restart my FFTactics games if one of my dudes bites it.

JillSammich wrote:

I actually liked Final Fantasy VII a lot

I know that the pendulum has swung the other way and it's considered now to be a sub-par FF game, but It was my first one, and I played it for hours and hours and loved every minute of it. I didn't have an emotional breakdown when Aeris died, but it was and still is one of my favorite FF games.

I don't think this is really blasphemy at all. FF VII isn't considered a sub-par FF game, just one that hasn't aged as gracefully as its 2D counterparts. FF VII is pretty much the Call of Duty of the JRPG world. It got so big that it became cool to hate on it, despite the fact that it was an incredible game at the time of release. You can't always trust GWJ when it comes to console games. Half of the people in this thread haven't played Zelda and couldn't stand Bioshock. What do they know?