Gaming Confessions & Blasphemy

kexx wrote:

Turtles in Time is one of the best Sidescroller Brawlers to ever grace the videogame scene.

Agreed.

kexx wrote:

If possible, I will play Super Metroid, Grim Fandango, Lemmings 2:The Tribes, Shadow of the Colossus, FF6, FF7, and FFX at least once a year.

Funny enough, I think FFX is, storywise, really, really bad. But the combat system is my favorite. The Sphere Grid is pure genius.

God I wish I had the time to play any two of my favorite old games once a year. I guess I do I just feel really stupid playing an old favorite instead of putting time into the newer games that are sitting on my shelf still in their plastic wrap.

The combat in FFX was great even when you did like I did and figured out a way to use every character in every fight so that they would all get XP. Of course the game really helped you out here since after you got your full party there was almost always an enemy in every battle that was weaker to magic or one of the less powerful melee characters skills.

ccesarano wrote:

I can see playing Super Metroid every year. But the different Final Fantasies are quite the time investment.

Sitting down for an evening playthrough of Super Metroid is one of my favorite things to do. It only takes 4-5 hours to beat and it's a thoroughly satisfying experience every time. Probably the best game ever made.

Edit: That's not a blasphemy, I just wanted to be emphatic.

Dyni wrote:

This one seems particularly insane to me. I don't think there is any single player game I love enough to play once per year, let alone 7 every year! There are always too many interesting games I haven't played to bother replaying those I have.

ccesarano wrote:

I can see playing Super Metroid every year. But the different Final Fantasies are quite the time investment.

Agreed they're big time investments. I don't always have the time to, though. I wish I could. I know there's many new games out there that are probably cool, but some of my other issues get in the way. For example, I only own a PS2, PS3 and a PC. I'm not a fan of the Wii, Xbox, or any handhelds, so that limits the amount of games I'm interested in. There hasn't been a game release that excites me enough to get another console. Not yet, anyway. The day they make a full console remake of FF6 (voice acting optional), on any console, and I'll buy it twice!!

And I have a special relationship with FF and Square Enix. While we hate each other right now, I can't deny that in the past, we had good times, so I like to walk down Nostalgia road whenever I can. Kind of like in Strange Days, where you revisit old memories.

Meh. Nevermind. As with many things on the internet... not worth it.

kexx wrote:

And I have a special relationship with FF and Square Enix. While we hate each other right now, I can't deny that in the past, we had good times, so I like to walk down Nostalgia road whenever I can. Kind of like in Strange Days, where you revisit old memories.

After playing Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume and enjoying it last year, I finally came to terms that Squenix is too large a company that makes too many things that I can possibly hate all of them. Especially now that they own Eidos.

I look at Square like I would view a first love. It was good times, we were both young and in love, but over time we just grew too different, wanted different things, and had to go our separate ways.

And then I wrote a Journey song about it.

Haha!

kexx wrote:

I don't know why, but I despise that Bayonetta exists.

Dead to me.

A lot of people are dead to me because of this thread, but this one in particular is worth pointing out.

Minarchist wrote:

Playing it again has brought be back around to this: Final Fantasy XIII is a brilliant game, the best in the series, and all of you hating it is the reason we gamers can't have nice things.

There, I said it.

The battle system: brilliant, understated and elegant, with loads of strategy. The plot: focusing on interwoven character development of six people instead of some incomprehensible war-of-the-worlds scheme is a masterstroke, and leads to some really great moments. The cinematography: Square's best to-date, with some truly affecting scenes like Snow and Hope's confrontation and Sazh's pathos moments. The music: bar none the best that's ever been put in a game, and I will defend that to the death.

What it lacks: most of the JRPG tropes that make a lot of people hate the genre. Close friends who suddenly betray your party for no good reason? Gone. Idiotic worldwide fetch quests to assemble twelve pieces of a powerful weapon before the final boss, where most people abandon the game? Gone. Poor pacing, where you are sent on some crazy objective and have to fight your way through the field, then the forest, then the dungeon to get to the next plot point? Gone. Obnoxiously cloying white-magic-using princess deposed from the throne by an evil uncle/father/stepmother? Gone. Drawn-out trash mob battles? Gone. Every ounce of the game's energy emphasizes speed in battles; it's the only thing that goes toward your grade.

And yet you complain. It's not "open world" enough. (I haven't gotten lost once! What's up with that?) The plot is too linear. I don't have enough choice in battle (I honestly don't even know how people can make this complaint in good faith).

You people make me sick.

Remember much earlier in this thread where I stated "you people are weird, because I like damn near everything"?

...FFXIII is one of those very rare games that I just really didn't care for, despite really wanting to. I didn't hate it, it was just that between the parts I liked and the parts I didn't, it wound up totally "meh" for me.

And really, the music is the best ever in any game? I'm honestly a little surprised by that; I can rattle off a slew of games with what I consider better overall soundtracks, and I'm not talking just overblown orchestral stuff (which can be fun too), but even games like Persona 4 (damn does that game have an awesome soundtrack...). Do note that I did like the soundtrack in FFXIII though. I like how you explain things, so I'd read your explanation of why the soundtrack is the best ever, especially with that godawful pop song that shows up periodically and ruins the ending scene.

[edit]Hey, just in case my tone isn't coming across right, I'm mostly being playful here (Minarchist is awesome!), but I also am hoping for a reply because Minarchist has written stuff about games that actually has brought me a greater appreciation for them. So right in line with my comments about wanting to like FFXIII more, maybe a good Minarchist write-up will knock down whatever mental wall is blocking me here.

MojoBox wrote:
ccesarano wrote:

I can see playing Super Metroid every year. But the different Final Fantasies are quite the time investment.

Sitting down for an evening playthrough of Super Metroid is one of my favorite things to do. It only takes 4-5 hours to beat and it's a thoroughly satisfying experience every time. Probably the best game ever made.

Edit: That's not a blasphemy, I just wanted to be emphatic.

I want to throw in a vote for Super Metroid as well. It's way up in my rankings of bestest games ever.

ccesarano wrote:
kexx wrote:

And I have a special relationship with FF and Square Enix. While we hate each other right now, I can't deny that in the past, we had good times, so I like to walk down Nostalgia road whenever I can. Kind of like in Strange Days, where you revisit old memories.

After playing Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume and enjoying it last year, I finally came to terms that Squenix is too large a company that makes too many things that I can possibly hate all of them. Especially now that they own Eidos.

I look at Square like I would view a first love. It was good times, we were both young and in love, but over time we just grew too different, wanted different things, and had to go our separate ways.

And then I wrote a Journey song about it.

I had a similar revelation when EA published Black. I realized that they were too big to ignore.

I bought Bayonetta and Heavenly Sword for reasons beyond just the game play.

IMAGE(http://www.autowallpapers.org/thumbnails/large_Bayonetta_Wide_35197.jpg)

IMAGE(http://www.gamewallpapers.com/previews_480x300/wallpaper_heavenly_sword_07.jpg)

Farscry wrote:
MojoBox wrote:
ccesarano wrote:

I can see playing Super Metroid every year. But the different Final Fantasies are quite the time investment.

Sitting down for an evening playthrough of Super Metroid is one of my favorite things to do. It only takes 4-5 hours to beat and it's a thoroughly satisfying experience every time. Probably the best game ever made.

Edit: That's not a blasphemy, I just wanted to be emphatic.

I want to throw in a vote for Super Metroid as well. It's way up in my rankings of bestest games ever. :)

Yep. One of the reasons why I play it once a year. Even for today's standards, it's musical score, in all it's 16bit glory, is superior to most of today's game music. Not all, but most.

On that topic:

Same can be said for F-Zero OST. SNES one, not the garbage that came afterwards where they changed the beautifully techno-ish Big Blue into an electric guitar rock type of crap. Give me 16bit soundbites or give me death!!!

Blind_Evil wrote:
kexx wrote:

I don't know why, but I despise that Bayonetta exists.

Dead to me.

A lot of people are dead to me because of this thread, but this one in particular is worth pointing out.

I lol'd. I'm amazed how differently we all see videogames. Makes me think, is there one game we can all agree is at least good?

Hopscotch. It's gotta be hopscotch.

LarryC wrote:

Hopscotch. It's gotta be hopscotch.

Maaaan screw hopscotch. The ending is so lame. You hop around, put forth all this effort, and then it just ends suddenly with no real explanation.

CptDomano wrote:
LarryC wrote:

Hopscotch. It's gotta be hopscotch.

Maaaan screw hopscotch. The ending is so lame. You hop around, put forth all this effort, and then it just ends suddenly with no real explanation. ;)

I demand that they go back and give me an ending that I deserve. I mean, I spent all that time throwing stones at squares and jumping with the promise that it was all going somewhere and blam. the end. WTF

I was really invested...

Obviously Windows XP Solitaire is the game you are looking for.

kexx wrote:
Blind_Evil wrote:
kexx wrote:

I don't know why, but I despise that Bayonetta exists.

Dead to me.

A lot of people are dead to me because of this thread, but this one in particular is worth pointing out.

I lol'd. I'm amazed how differently we all see videogames. Makes me think, is there one game we can all agree is at least good?

People think Portal sucks. People think Mario sucks. People think Metroid sucks. People think Half Life sucks. People think Baldur's Gate sucks. People think Mass Effect sucks. People think Elder Scrolls sucks. People think Uncharted sucks. People think Halo sucks. People think Deus Ex sucks. People think Final Fantasy (insert number here) sucks. People think Starcraft sucks. People think Bioshock sucks. People think Batman sucks. People think The Walking Dead sucks. People think GTA sucks.

In other words, no.

kexx wrote:

I lol'd. I'm amazed how differently we all see videogames. Makes me think, is there one game we can all agree is at least good?

Tetris?

onewild wrote:
kexx wrote:

I lol'd. I'm amazed how differently we all see videogames. Makes me think, is there one game we can all agree is at least good?

Tetris?

Seeing as there's at least one person in this thread who wants to shot the person throwing all those blocks at him, I'd say nope.
Besides, they should nerf the straight block, those things make the game too easy.

heavyfeul wrote:

I bought Bayonetta and Heavenly Sword for reasons beyond just the game play.

IMAGE(http://www.autowallpapers.org/thumbnails/large_Bayonetta_Wide_35197.jpg)

IMAGE(http://www.gamewallpapers.com/previews_480x300/wallpaper_heavenly_sword_07.jpg)

You like long hair?

kexx wrote:

I lol'd. I'm amazed how differently we all see videogames. Makes me think, is there one game we can all agree is at least good?

Space Cadet pinball.

Oooh, speaking fo Tetris:

NES's theme C is the best. There, I said it.

How can anybody hate a game that gave the world this?

Chumpy_McChump wrote:
heavyfeul wrote:

I bought Bayonetta and Heavenly Sword for reasons beyond just the game play.

IMAGE(http://www.autowallpapers.org/thumbnails/large_Bayonetta_Wide_35197.jpg)

IMAGE(http://www.gamewallpapers.com/previews_480x300/wallpaper_heavenly_sword_07.jpg)

You like long hair?

Precisely!

Oh, here's one from the overrated/underrated thread: Mass Effect 2 was the worst of the Mass Effect series. The shootings mechanics and powers were greatly improved from ME1, but everything else was a letdown.

I know a lot of people liked all the little character side missions, but I felt like it turned the whole game into Shepard Counseling Services, LLC. It also dominated the narrative in a way that made the Save The Colonies stuff feel like the side quests. The plot of ME2 was only about four bullet points long. You never got to develop what the Collectors were about in the same way that you got the sense of Saren was up to in ME1. Plot points were dropped like pallets of paving stone with little foreshadowing or real connection between one and the next.

The Collectors never did for me as villains. In ME1, the combination of Saren, the Geth and

Spoiler:

Harbinger

fused a lot of really great traits into a single villain: the, er, humanity of Saren combined with the coldness of the Geth combined with the

Spoiler:

alien perspective and disinterest of Harbinger

made them into a villain larger than the sum of their parts. I feel like the Collectors took the opposite traits and turned into something lesser. Their only real interaction with Shepard is to shout, "I AM ASSUMING CONTROL" at her from time to time. Even mechanically, they didn't work very well. They could fly, and never attempted to use that to flank me. They were just tougher versions of the mercenaries that you gunned down by the hundreds in Omega. Arguably, the Illuminated Man is the real big bad of ME2, and he was wonderful (because Martin Sheen FULL STOP), but I don't think the writers ever figured out what to do with him.

The game also make the world of Mass Effect feel a lot more constricted and less open. It felt less like you were exploring a brave new frontier and more like you were, well, crawling through a series of video game levels. As much as people apparently hated the Mako in ME1, it went a long way towards making the galaxy feel big and expansive. The ME2 galaxy felt limited to a few tiny population centers dotted in inaccessible wastelands.

The ending was absolute nonsense. I still have no idea how people complain about the ME3 ending when they played through that silliness. Oh, you think

Spoiler:

reaper ghost child

is silly? What about the

Spoiler:

Giant Flaming Robot Fetus Skeleton made of Soylent Green

that you blew away at the end of ME2?

In RE: ME2

Spoiler:

Sovereign was the Reaper in the first game. The "Assuming direct control" was Harbinger. The Collectors don't really have any, er, character because they are empty vessels, organic machines. You don't ever interact with them, it's always Harbinger that you are actually interacting with.

As far as exploring a frontier vs a series of levels, well this sort of makes sense too. In ME1 you really are out on the frontiers, Shephard is hunting Saren in the colonies, the new settlements out on the fringes of unexplored space. ME2 takes place almost entirely in the well settled Terminus systems. I too appreciate the openness of the Mako levels, in theory, but in practice that stuff sucked balls. I would have preferred they tried to improve the concept rather than cutting it, but if you can't do something good don't do it at all. After the crappiness of the Hammerhead levels in the DLC packs I was rather glad to see them drop the idea entirely for ME3.

onewild wrote:

How can anybody hate a game that gave the world this?

My friends and I made up lyrics to Tetris

Spoiler:

..and Super Mario 3

Spoiler:

I don't really remember them...

heavyfeul wrote:
Chumpy_McChump wrote:
heavyfeul wrote:

I bought Bayonetta and Heavenly Sword for reasons beyond just the game play.

IMAGE(http://www.autowallpapers.org/thumbnails/large_Bayonetta_Wide_35197.jpg)

IMAGE(http://www.gamewallpapers.com/previews_480x300/wallpaper_heavenly_sword_07.jpg)

You like long hair?

Precisely! ;)

Oddly enough, upon seeing footage of Bayonetta again, including her special credits dance, she struck me as being so awkward and physically impossible that any attempts for her to be attractive were nullified.

Plus her dancing reminded me of Guitaroo Man.

But speaking of, I guess that leads to a sort of gaming confession. Once upon a time I couldn't fathom choosing a female avatar since I'm a guy because if I'm projecting myself onto the character then I'd just have a female avatar that acts like a man and that's silly. Plus, male armor looks bad ass.

Then Dragon's Dogma came out and I sat there, looking at the gender select, and just had enough. I'm sick of playing dudes in all of my games. So I switched it to a chick and I do not regret it.