Gaming Confessions & Blasphemy

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I don't care if a game has voice acting. If the text is interesting to read, I don't particularly care if I have to click through it to read it. I don't need it read to me.

I actually prefer text to voice acting unless the voice acting is actually good.

With a soft spot for terrible PS-era JRPG voice acting.

Ax7 wrote:

I have not tried DA2, and probably never will.

Probably a smart idea.

[size=10](Yes, I am poking the bear.)[/size]

ahrezmendi wrote:

Change "UT2k4" to "UT2k3" and I agree with the shooter sentiments. I didn't enjoy anything 2k4 brought to the series, but 2k3 was an amazing level of polish added to an already amazing base game. I played far, far too much UT.

Clearly you weren't a fan of Assault, which makes you a heathen.

And I do mean Assault. Onslaught was ass, and a desperate attempt for PC games to do something Halo was doing. At least, that's how it came off to me, what with having a friggin' near-replica of the damn Ghost.

I also loved Invasion, though I'm not sure if that was added into 2K4 or was always there.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I don't care if a game has voice acting. If the text is interesting to read, I don't particularly care if I have to click through it to read it. I don't need it read to me.

This reminds me. Every time someone Female Doggoes about Zelda games not having "proper voice acting" I wanna punch 'em in the mouth. You know what's going to happen when they finally add voice acting to Zelda? People will Female Doggo. It doesn't matter whether it is good or bad, people will Female Doggo.

Even though Zelda is stuck in a perpetual state of "damned if you do, damned if you don't" anyway.

I prefer Zelda without voice acting. I prefer games without voice acting unless the voice acting is good enough to actually bring something to the table (the Portal games come to mind).

Demyx wrote:

I prefer Zelda without voice acting. I prefer games without voice acting unless the voice acting is good enough to actually bring something to the table (the Portal games come to mind).

Unless voice acting gives you characters like Wheatley in Portal 2 who are actually a detriment to the game. I couldn't stand that character, and it was due almost entirely to his voice.

jamos5 wrote:

But in their defense, I still think its a valid point to say that stories should be getting better. To me, I don't care what mechanics or gameplay would have to change in order to achieve that, I just care that stories get better. That probably will require video games to become something entirely different than what they are now, but maybe in a hundred years or so people and society will change enough to make that possible.

I agree, I just think the mechanics aren't there yet, or at least there is no way for them to be implemented in an affordable way. I don't think it's a coincidence that when people talk about stories in games being surprisingly mature or complex, there is usually also discussion about how little actual "gameplay" exists in them and/or how the gameplay and story seem divorced from each other. Video games have much more in common with hockey or chess than they do with movies or books so I feel there is always a limitation to what can be done in the narrative because of it.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Unless voice acting gives you characters like Wheatley in Portal 2 who are actually a detriment to the game. I couldn't stand that character, and it was due almost entirely to his voice.

I read "unless voice acting" and then the rest of your post was just a wobbly blur, not sure what happened there...

Change "UT2k4" to "UT2k3" and I agree with the shooter sentiments.

I actually somehow missed UT2k3, so 2004 was all new to me . I might have to go try it and see the differences between the two. Also, yes, Assault was grand.

Granath wrote:

Confession time...I think both Dark Souls and FTL are pretty poor games.

I only played Dark Souls on the PC, but found that it was a tedious, punishing game with absurdly stupid boss fights and little fun. I understand the challenge of Dark Souls but I failed to experience much "fun" in DS. I usually like gaming challenges, but the ones presented in DS just don't click with me. FTL is a pretty decent game until the final boss fight where you need to have a very precise build of your ship to have a good chance to succeed. Once that is understood and experienced, the "choice" in the game is hereby removed and it becomes nothing more than a game of guessing the optimal path. It entirely ruined the game for me.

I liked Dark Souls, but I didn't think it was as strong as Demon's Souls. To each his own.

FTL I super agree with though. I was having fun with the game until I played against the boss for the first time. I was so soundly thrashed that I decided to go online and look at a guide. After finding that it was just one phase of many I basically never played the game again. I enjoy the exploration/survival aspect, but I hate the "build to the boss" strategy that's required.

**edit for double quote**

ccesarano wrote:

You know what's going to happen when they finally add voice acting to Zelda? People will Female Doggo. It doesn't matter whether it is good or bad, people will Female Doggo.

Even though Zelda is stuck in a perpetual state of "damned if you do, damned if you don't" anyway.

Yeah, the Zelda series is an odd duck in this regard.

It rose to fame long before voice acting was the norm, but never made the transition after it became an feature so common that we just take it for granted today. I've wondered at times if Nintendo's design choice to avoid voice acting all together has dug them a hole that it is difficult to get out of.

If Nintendo had gone through the natural growing pains in voice acting quality that the whole industry did some 20 years ago, perhaps they would be in a position today where the staple franchises would be voiced with Uncharted-caliber talent, with the Nintendo stylings of course (Pixar-quality voicing?).

I’d actually love to see an earnest attempt at full voice acting in Zelda. Yes people would pull out pitchforks either way, but that’s immaterial, imo. The longer Nintendo shies away from voice acting the longer it could take to reach a parity with industry standards, which are pretty darn good at this point.

If sticking with text-only communication is a top-level design choice for artistic reasons, I can totally respect that. The nostalgia part of me agrees, while the modernists says, “Get on with it already.” But suggesting Nintendo shouldn’t even try because they don’t have the experience or the fans will Female Doggo seems like poor reasoning against even making an attempt at all.

ccesarano wrote:
ahrezmendi wrote:

Change "UT2k4" to "UT2k3" and I agree with the shooter sentiments. I didn't enjoy anything 2k4 brought to the series, but 2k3 was an amazing level of polish added to an already amazing base game. I played far, far too much UT.

Clearly you weren't a fan of Assault, which makes you a heathen.

And I do mean Assault. Onslaught was ass, and a desperate attempt for PC games to do something Halo was doing. At least, that's how it came off to me, what with having a friggin' near-replica of the damn Ghost.

I also loved Invasion, though I'm not sure if that was added into 2K4 or was always there.

I wasn't a fan of Onslaught either. I didn't have any particular issue with UT2k4, mostly I didn't play it because by the time it came around I didn't have time to sit and play UT for hours on end like I did with UT and UT2k3.

I think the key to good voice acting is to make all protagonists female, clone Jennifer Hale, and have the Legions of Hale do all voice acting.

I found Bioshock 1 intensely boring in both gameplay and story. I had to give it up half way through.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Unless voice acting gives you characters like Wheatley in Portal 2 who are actually a detriment to the game. I couldn't stand that character, and it was due almost entirely to his voice.

Clockers gonna Clock.

Aaron D. wrote:

Yeah, the Zelda series is an odd duck in this regard.

It rose to fame long before voice acting was the norm, but never made the transition after it became an feature so common that we just take it for granted today. I've wondered at times if Nintendo's design choice to avoid voice acting all together has dug them a hole that it is difficult to get out of.

If Nintendo had gone through the natural growing pains in voice acting quality that the whole industry did some 20 years ago, perhaps they would be in a position today where the staple franchises would be voiced with Uncharted-caliber talent, with the Nintendo stylings of course (Pixar-quality voicing?).

I’d actually love to see an earnest attempt at full voice acting in Zelda. Yes people would pull out pitchforks either way, but that’s immaterial, imo. The longer Nintendo shies away from voice acting the longer it could take to reach a parity with industry standards, which are pretty darn good at this point.

If sticking with text-only communication is a top-level design choice for artistic reasons, I can totally respect that. The nostalgia part of me agrees, while the modernists says, “Get on with it already.” But suggesting Nintendo shouldn’t even try because they don’t have the experience or the fans will Female Doggo seems like poor reasoning against even making an attempt at all.

To fully specify what I meant, I think no matter what Nintendo does with Zelda in any way, shape, or form, it's going to be held to an impossible standard. People want change, but they don't want change. People have knee-jerk negative reactions to new ideas, and then Nintendo is too late in realizing their ideas were good.

For example, Majora's Mask. There's a sub-culture of gamers that feel that's the best Zelda game, and one of the reasons is because it was so different. Wind Waker, also quite different both in visual style and in the overworld being a big ass ocean, as well as other ways of breaking out of the traditional Zelda pattern. Also not as well received when first released, so Twilight Princess was an attempt to go back to Ocarina of Time "but darker", and then Skyward Sword seems to be trying to mix both Ocarina and Wind Waker together.

Honestly, in my mind, the best thing Nintendo can do is just reboot Zelda altogether, and choose a direction. That, or go back to each game being unrelated. I think one of the worst things that has happened is the shared and split timeline. I liked it better when each game was unrelated to the other.

Tanglebones wrote:

When Dragon Age II came out, it was controversial for a lot of reasons, but one of the surprising ones (to me) was that it was a rare AA+ game that targeted a female audience.

Did DA2 actually "target" a female audience? Like DA:O and indeed most Bioware games you can play a female protagonist, but as usual the canonical protagonist in marketing materials is male.

Ax7 wrote:

I have not tried DA2, and probably never will.

Not liking DA:O might make you more likely to enjoy DA2, which is a very different game. It addresses some of your graphics concerns, if nothing else.

Zudz wrote:
Granath wrote:

Confession time...I think both Dark Souls and FTL are pretty poor games.

FTL I super agree with though. I was having fun with the game until I played against the boss for the first time. I was so soundly thrashed that I decided to go online and look at a guide. After finding that it was just one phase of many I basically never played the game again. I enjoy the exploration/survival aspect, but I hate the "build to the boss" strategy that's required.

Both of you might be interested in the Endless Space mod. It's basically FTL without the flagship (end-game boss) and the advancing rebel fleet, with a bit of extra content.

*No Rebel Fleet, No Rebel Boss, No hard stop end of game.
*Redesign of Sectors, and Enemy ships.
*Sector "mini bosses" (Player Cruisers images).
*19 new custom weapons.
*17 new custom drones.
*18 new events

I haven't tried it myself, but I've heard good things.

gore wrote:
Tanglebones wrote:

When Dragon Age II came out, it was controversial for a lot of reasons, but one of the surprising ones (to me) was that it was a rare AA+ game that targeted a female audience.

Did DA2 actually "target" a female audience? Like DA:O and indeed most Bioware games you can play a female protagonist, but as usual the canonical protagonist in marketing materials is male.

Ax7 wrote:

I have not tried DA2, and probably never will.

Not liking DA:O might make you more likely to enjoy DA2, which is a very different game. It addresses some of your graphics concerns, if nothing else.

Targeted in the sense that the story is based around more traditional female themes in writing - holding together a family vs. conquering a kingdom; an emphasis on romance and character interaction.

ccesarano wrote:

To fully specify what I meant, I think no matter what Nintendo does with Zelda in any way, shape, or form, it's going to be held to an impossible standard. People want change, but they don't want change. People have knee-jerk negative reactions to new ideas, and then Nintendo is too late in realizing their ideas were good.

Yup. Totally agreed.

Maintaining artistic freedom and integrity while simultaneously pleasing your fan-base is a tightrope act I'll never understand. Maybe the artists most successful at it are the ones who focus on the former more than anything, but what do I know. I'm not an artist and following your gut through thick and thin sounds like a Hallmark movie sentiment.

ccesarano wrote:

Honestly, in my mind, the best thing Nintendo can do is just reboot Zelda altogether, and choose a direction.

Agreed X 2.

The best work Nintendo has done in the last 10 years came out of throwing caution to the wind and handing the reins of the Metroid franchise over to Retro. By taking a chance on a full-on reboot, Nintendo produced what I still regard as the freshest, most polished and invigorating franchise release in over a decade.

Imagine if the same experimental creativity and abandon were applied to a modern 3D Zelda game? ** swoon **

Despite Nintendo publishing a whole book about the Zelda timeline (which I am now reading, incidentally) it sure doesn't seem to come up much in the games (Skyward Sword being kind of an exception). What would a reboot of Zelda be like that, say, Wind Waker wasn't?

Skyrim. :p

Aaron D. wrote:

Skyrim. :p

It would be like Oblivion with guns, without guns, with a triforce.

Demyx wrote:

Despite Nintendo publishing a whole book about the Zelda timeline (which I am now reading, incidentally) it sure doesn't seem to come up much in the games (Skyward Sword being kind of an exception). What would a reboot of Zelda be like that, say, Wind Waker wasn't?

Don't know. That's one of the reasons I kind of want them to do it. Just shove the franchise's history to the wayside and say "Okay, what do we NEED in a Zelda game? Dungeons, items, and puzzles. Right. Now, what have we always wanted to do in execution?"

A Zelda that looks like a Pixar game or has Link in chainmail and a kilt, I don't care. I'd just love a sort of re-imagining. Or perhaps put the Pixar game on 3DS and the "realistic" one on console. I dunno.

Or perhaps I'll just wait and see what the Wii-U one is going to be.

Okay, but how does Wind Waker not fit those criteria?

I get why not Twilight Princess (it's supposed to be "darker" Ocarina) and why not Skyward Sword (it's the anniversary game and filled to the brim with throwbacks) but Wind Waker had a completely different gameplay style and the "ocean" mechanic was a pretty significant gameplay shift.

Or do you mean more like Majora's Mask? Majora's Mask is interesting in that it heavily reuses the art assets from Ocarina but is a large departure from every other Zelda game in terms of plot and tone, also with some fairly unique mechanics.

I haven´t touched a Zelda game since Ocarina of Time, so my input might lack proper perspective, BUT, maybe what the franchise needs in terms of rebooting it, is story progression? I may be completely wrong here, but personally, what would spark my interest in it again, would be if they had a "proper" story to it.

For example, and this might be a bad example, the last Metroid game I played, was Super Metroid. This is a game that I play once a year still, I love it that much. Yet it has no "common linear story progression", persé. Then came the Primes, and the reasons why I never picked those up, were because a) they were on Gamecube, and I had transitioned to PSX, and b) although I love FP perspective, I thought it didn´t fit the Metroidverse.

So my interest in such a great franchised diminished to the point of almost deceased, UNTIL, the trailer for Other M came out. We all now know what a horrible title that came to be, but when the trailer launched, I was completely wrapped around it again, because it showed, to my experience, a new facet in Samus´extended career. Story progression. Actions and Reactions. Consequences. Aftermath. I loved all that.

So keeping that in mind, something similar in terms of consequences, serializing the franchise, if you will, is something that would spark MY interest in Zelda. Don´t really know if it´s been done with Majora´s, windwaker, skyward or twilight.

I HATE Ocarina in Time. Boring. No matter how many times I have tried to play it, on many platforms, I can never get more than a few hours before losing interest.

Twilight Princess was okay, though, except the wolf.

Demyx wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:

Unless voice acting gives you characters like Wheatley in Portal 2 who are actually a detriment to the game. I couldn't stand that character, and it was due almost entirely to his voice.

I read "unless voice acting" and then the rest of your post was just a wobbly blur, not sure what happened there...

I think what you are saying is Clocky needs to confess about being wrong.

Zudz wrote:
Granath wrote:

Confession time...I think both Dark Souls and FTL are pretty poor games.

I only played Dark Souls on the PC, but found that it was a tedious, punishing game with absurdly stupid boss fights and little fun. I understand the challenge of Dark Souls but I failed to experience much "fun" in DS. I usually like gaming challenges, but the ones presented in DS just don't click with me.

I liked Dark Souls, but I didn't think it was as strong as Demon's Souls. To each his own.

To add to the to each his own, Dark Souls is my personal Game of the Year so far, grabbing me so much that I put in at least twice as many hours in half the time as I typically do for any other game. It just clicked right into place for me. Demon's Souls is doing ok, and really enjoyable, but not grabbing me like Dark Souls did (having played that one first).

The last Zelda game I actually enjoyed was Link's Awakening.

Ok first time i have seen this topic and just a couple of posts in and I see this

"2. I don't care for Homeworld.
For people who were playing PC games in the late '90s, Homeworld was a landmark game. And I should like it, it has everything I like about games: strategy, spaceships, good story. But, it just never grabbed me, even though I have tried multiple times since it came out to get into it. Maybe it's the 3D space the game operates in never clicked with my old monkey brain."

And all I could think was, there needs to be a sacrilege thread cause that goes way beyond blasphemy.

mrtomaytohead wrote:
Demyx wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:

Unless voice acting gives you characters like Wheatley in Portal 2 who are actually a detriment to the game. I couldn't stand that character, and it was due almost entirely to his voice.

I read "unless voice acting" and then the rest of your post was just a wobbly blur, not sure what happened there...

I think what you are saying is Clocky needs to confess about being wrong. :P

I'm having trouble thinking of a video game character I hate more than Wheatley.

Imagine you're in an alternate universe where you hate Jar Jar Binks but everyone else thinks he's funny and charming and added a lot to Episode 1, which was really a fantastic follow-up to the original Star Wars trilogy. It's a bit like that.

ccesarano wrote:

To fully specify what I meant, I think no matter what Nintendo does with Zelda in any way, shape, or form, it's going to be held to an impossible standard. People want change, but they don't want change. People have knee-jerk negative reactions to new ideas, and then Nintendo is too late in realizing their ideas were good.

See also: every game with a sequel that's more than a glorified mission pack.