Gaming Confessions & Blasphemy

TheHipGamer wrote:
ccesarano wrote:
We're on the same page re: ME2. Hugs for everyone, and friends again!

Don't touch me.

Your sig lies.

I am not the hug initiator therefore don't touch me.

kexx - I brought that up as an example of how good design can mask exactly what you're talking about. I wasn't saying there's anything bad about linearity in games.

I think that when people complain about linearity in games, they're not actually put off by the linearity but the lack of approach options. Mega Man is a good example here, as you said you're going to defeat the 8 robots and then Dr. Wily every time. That never changes, but what does change is the order in which you take them on, and that order choice has a very meaningful impact on how easy or hard some of those bosses will be. The same is true in Mass Effect, your choice of whether or not to kill Wrex may force you to run with a party you weren't planning on, and thus makes future encounters more challenging or easier. The interest factor derives from how you choose to approach the story, not the fact that the story has new twists each time you play it.

Dakuna wrote:

I hate the xbox controller!

The X360 controller would be less burdensome if three changes were made:

1) make it 20% bigger, like that monster original Xbox controller

2) replace the sh*t directional pad with a Nintendo one: just four perpendicular lines was perfect.

3) add a button somewhere out of the way that would instantly change you from party chat to game chat, because it's so annoying doing that manually several times over the course of 10 or 30 or 60 minutes.

Not all story games have linear progression. Most of the games that are popular in the Western hemisphere are, but that doesn't mean that they all are. The game genre focusing on story that most typifies nonlinear story in the sense of different story paths and endings is the Japanese Visual Novel. Here's the Wiki entry on Fate/Stay Night:

Fate/stay night's gameplay requires little interaction from the player as most of the game's duration is spent on reading the text that appears, representing either dialogue between the characters or the inner thoughts of the protagonist. Often, players will come to a "decision point" where they are given the chance to choose from options displayed on the screen, typically two to three at a time. The time between these decision points is variable and during these times, gameplay pauses until a choice is made that furthers the plot in a specific direction. There are three main plot lines that the player will have the chance to experience, one for each of the heroines in the story. To view all three plot lines, the player will have to replay the game multiple times and choose different choices during the decision points to progress the plot in an alternate direction.

One start point, three radically different endings.

Some Japanese Visual Novels can boast as much as 16 or more possible different endings, some better than others. This sort of game has finally gotten a bit of an entry into the Western market. ME2 is kind of a dating game, though the single ending is out of character for that kind of a game. Typically, in a visual novel, choosing who to romance or befriend has an impact on how the game ends.

I believe the DS game "999" and the new PSVita game "Zero Escape" are Anglicized visual novels that anyone with those systems can purchase and play. Here's the IGN review for Zero Escape:

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/10/...

It's a story game, so don't read too much if you don't want major, mind-bending spoilers.

The clear difference here, of course, is that visual novels are NOT just one story - each is composed of many stories. A free example can be downloaded and played on the PC - Katawa Shoujo, though having played KS, I can't say that I'm particularly hooked by the writing. Obviously, a story game lives or dies by its writing. While KS does have many endings, the writing didn't entertain me as much as it should.

On that note, you might like Analogue: A Hate Story, Larry

On linear vs non-linear storytelling - for me it's not that one is better than the other, the thing with games is that as a player I can have an impact in some form, so to use that to best advantage you need to do it with the story too.

Another gaming confession is I'm obsessed with monitoring the amount of hours I've clocked in a game. After each gaming session I just need to check the steam page to see if my total hours has increased.

I think there's a difference between linear narrative (Call of Duty), branching narrative (Mass Effect), and non-linear narrative where the player can tackle various plotlines in any order they choose (Skyrim, Fallout 3). There's also player-driven narrative that arises purely out of gameplay (Far Cry 2, Dishonored, lords management, etc).

I get the impression that the latter is what a certain group of people frequently want when they're complaining about linear narratives. They want a complex set of independent but interacting systems that can cause crazy stuff to happen that no designer scripted or wrote.

As for a confession, Final Fantasy III is my favorite of the series (of the ones I've played, at least). I played the 3D remake on the DS and had the best time playing around with the job system and trying different party combos. I haven't had that urge to experiment in any of the other FF games I've tried. (FFX has my favorite story though, and its battle system was pretty great as well).

I'm finding myself more interested in the characters of many games than I ever will be in actually playing those games.
Cool characters can drive my interest in a game/series, but even if the game/series is unsatisfying, I'll still be interested in those characters. Example: I really like the Lightning in the FFXIII series, but playing those games? Yeah... no. I'm at the point where I'll wiki character backgrounds and YouTube clips from the games before committing to spending hours in a world I may or may not enjoy.

ahrezmendi wrote:

My latest confession:

I enjoy having a character in EVE Online. Just having a character, for some crazy reason, is enjoyable to me. All I've done for the past month since re-subbing is manage my skill queue, I haven't actually joined in any of the fleet ops my corp has going. I really don't get it, but I enjoy seeing that my character is becoming a better pilot, even if I'm not actually doing any piloting.

I'm tempted to resub every now and then just to do this. It's in some ways more fun than the actual game.

TheHipGamer wrote:

CoD is less fun than Doom was.

Doom was less fun than CoD is.

I guess that's a blasphemous opinion on my part.

I never played a single multiplayer session of SC2 and felt I got my money's worth.

Reaper81 wrote:

I never played a single multiplayer session of SC2 and felt I got my money's worth.

Same here. Never was big into competitive SC/BW multiplayer either. Mostly just did comp-stomps with friends.

Farscry wrote:
TheHipGamer wrote:

CoD is less fun than Doom was.

Doom was less fun than CoD is.

I guess that's a blasphemous opinion on my part. ;)

I LOVED Doom, and Wolfenstein and lots of others, but let's be fair, CoD is objectively more fun. Subjectively, yes, I probably got more enjoyment out of Doom, but that has far more to do with who I was and who I am now.

Around this community I imagine the confession that everytime I see SC# I think Soul Calibur instead of Star Craft is considered blasphemy.

Rykin wrote:
Reaper81 wrote:

I never played a single multiplayer session of SC2 and felt I got my money's worth.

Same here. Never was big into competitive SC/BW multiplayer either. Mostly just did comp-stomps with friends.

I'm with you. We should all jump in vent and play SC2 single player together.

Grenn wrote:
Rykin wrote:
Reaper81 wrote:

I never played a single multiplayer session of SC2 and felt I got my money's worth.

Same here. Never was big into competitive SC/BW multiplayer either. Mostly just did comp-stomps with friends.

I'm with you. We should all jump in vent and play SC2 single player together.

Is it just me, or is this a bit of an oxymoron. Also, my confession: I've never played SC2.

soonerjudd wrote:
Grenn wrote:
Rykin wrote:
Reaper81 wrote:

I never played a single multiplayer session of SC2 and felt I got my money's worth.

Same here. Never was big into competitive SC/BW multiplayer either. Mostly just did comp-stomps with friends.

I'm with you. We should all jump in vent and play SC2 single player together.

Is it just me, or is this a bit of an oxymoron. Also, my confession: I've never played SC2.

IMAGE(http://images.wikia.com/adventuretimewithfinnandjake/images/a/a3/Thats-the-joke.jpg)

OK that's what I figured. Just didn't know if there was something about the game I was missing, since I haven't played it.

ccesarano wrote:

Around this community I imagine the confession that everytime I see SC# I think Soul Calibur instead of Star Craft is considered blasphemy.

+1

I liked the Xen level in Half Life
Nice change of pace. Fun times killing giant baby. Get to ride on a flying manta ray. Good times all around.

Dakuna wrote:
Farscry wrote:
TheHipGamer wrote:

CoD is less fun than Doom was.

Doom was less fun than CoD is.

I guess that's a blasphemous opinion on my part. ;)

I LOVED Doom, and Wolfenstein and lots of others, but let's be fair, CoD is objectively more fun. Subjectively, yes, I probably got more enjoyment out of Doom, but that has far more to do with who I was and who I am now.

There are many modern shooters that are more fun than Doom. But CoD just isn't one of them.

ahrezmendi wrote:
ccesarano wrote:

Around this community I imagine the confession that everytime I see SC# I think Soul Calibur instead of Star Craft is considered blasphemy.

+1

+2 Count me in with the blasphemers.

ahrezmendi wrote:

I enjoy having a character in EVE Online.

You're not alone there. I sold my carrier pilot for a good chunk of change when I quit EVE, but I just couldn't part with my main, a crackerjack battleship pilot that was this -><- close to being in dreads.

I haven't logged in for a couple years but I still think about that game often and feel good knowing my pilot is waiting for me if I ever suddenly get boatloads of free time in my life. I had some great times in that game but it was all because of the metagame with my corp and alliance, and had nothing to do with the absolutely atrocious gaming experience that was (is?) EVE online.

JillSammich wrote:
ahrezmendi wrote:
ccesarano wrote:

Around this community I imagine the confession that everytime I see SC# I think Soul Calibur instead of Star Craft is considered blasphemy.

+1

+2 Count me in with the blasphemers.

I think once there are three of us it stops being a blasphemy.

And I'm not sure I'm sold on the idea that it's all that "varied" either, most enemies have one critical weakness that's easily exploitable.
You're playing a shooter, right? Then stuff should die when you shoot it, not after you use half your ammo with any gun other than a sniper rifle to down the thing's shields, then the other half to maybe reduce its life enough to kill it.

These two people are talking about the same game, two posts apart. This thread makes me think of the games or genres that have a following which I don't like, I probably just don't grok a critical element required to squeeze out the fun.

Mario 64 was the only N64 game I ever owned. It was the sh*t. Vexx was an even better 3D platformer, probably the very best.

Reaper81 wrote:

I never played a single multiplayer session of SC2 and felt I got my money's worth.

Multiplayer? What multiplayer? Same, and I'll be doing the same with Heart of the Swarm.

I really like Myst and Riven but can't stand most other point and click adventure games. Jury is still out on The Walking Dead though since I have only played 30 minutes or so.

Tanglebones:

Cool suggestion. I'll be sure to pick it up!

ccesarano:

Of course, sometimes developers are just dumb about how they "solve" a problem. Mass Effect was a perfect fit for inventory since it allowed for greater character customization. The problem was that the user interface was complete sh*t, at the very least on console. Instead of evaluating how companies like Square have been doing inventory on console since the mother f*cking 80's, however, they decided to just get rid of inventory in Mass Effect 2.

That's actually a rather widespread opinion, as far as I know, so I'm going to go and blaspheme some more.

I think the item-and-inventory system in ME2 is much, much better than ME1's from balance, usability, story, and customization perspectives. Essentially, in every way that counts.

LarryC wrote:

Tanglebones:

Cool suggestion. I'll be sure to pick it up!

ccesarano:

Of course, sometimes developers are just dumb about how they "solve" a problem. Mass Effect was a perfect fit for inventory since it allowed for greater character customization. The problem was that the user interface was complete sh*t, at the very least on console. Instead of evaluating how companies like Square have been doing inventory on console since the mother f*cking 80's, however, they decided to just get rid of inventory in Mass Effect 2.

That's actually a rather widespread opinion, as far as I know, so I'm going to go and blaspheme some more.

I think the item-and-inventory system in ME2 is much, much better than ME1's from balance, usability, story, and customization perspectives. Essentially, in every way that counts.

You know the inventory system was terrible but also the guns in ME just weren't that varied. In a weapon class all the different weapons pretty much felt the same and there were never any really interesting choices to make. There was almost always a single gun that was the best choice in every stat (especially with some of the stuff added by the Pinnacle Station DLC). I missed having an inventory a bit in ME2 but I have to say the weapon variety was much more interesting.