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What are you playing? [SPOILER TAGS PLEASE]

Started by Sabby, May 31, 2009, 12:45:35 PM

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Hemingway

Gothic 2 did not have a "fully animated" sex scene. It's slightly more graphic than what you find in Mass Effect or Dragon Age, but that's about it.

The Witcher didn't, either. I do like some of those cards, though.

Speaking of the Witcher, who is hotter: Shani or Triss? I sadly couldn't find a better shot of the former, who in my opinion is the better looking of the two. It does make me wonder if Andrzej Sapkowski has a thing for redheads, though. Which, of course, the two of us would then have in common.

Anyway, been playing a bit more Bioshock 2, and ... I don't know. It's not a bad game, but it just feels like someone sat down and said, "guys, the players want to play a Big Daddy, so we need to come up with something, and fast". It feels like I'm playing a more primitive Bioshock, really. So, as I suspected, it's not a bad game per se, but it's certainly not as good or even nearly as good as the original. Bioshock Infinite does look to have potential, though. I've never been a huge fan of Bioshock, but Infinite is looking better and better.

Inkidu

Quote from: Hemingway on April 13, 2011, 05:40:34 PM
Gothic 2 did not have a "fully animated" sex scene. It's slightly more graphic than what you find in Mass Effect or Dragon Age, but that's about it.

The Witcher didn't, either. I do like some of those cards, though.

Speaking of the Witcher, who is hotter: Shani or Triss? I sadly couldn't find a better shot of the former, who in my opinion is the better looking of the two. It does make me wonder if Andrzej Sapkowski has a thing for redheads, though. Which, of course, the two of us would then have in common.

Anyway, been playing a bit more Bioshock 2, and ... I don't know. It's not a bad game, but it just feels like someone sat down and said, "guys, the players want to play a Big Daddy, so we need to come up with something, and fast". It feels like I'm playing a more primitive Bioshock, really. So, as I suspected, it's not a bad game per se, but it's certainly not as good or even nearly as good as the original. Bioshock Infinite does look to have potential, though. I've never been a huge fan of Bioshock, but Infinite is looking better and better.
My problem with BioShock 2 wasn't the story. It was okay, and it's damn hard to top the first. Maybe they shouldn't have tried. I don't blame them for trying though. I just hated the fact that you were basically Jack again. Seriously, they missed a huge opportunity. You should have been on part with all the big daddies, big sister should have been a single recurring boss that you only drove off, and splicers (save the delightfully foppish brute) should only give you trouble in large numbers.

The road to video game hell is paved with miss opportunities though.

Oh, on the two redheads thing. Both, but that was never an option, and I don't particularly care for redheads.
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

consortium11

Quote from: Hemingway on April 13, 2011, 05:40:34 PM
Gothic 2 did not have a "fully animated" sex scene. It's slightly more graphic than what you find in Mass Effect or Dragon Age, but that's about it.

The Witcher didn't, either. I do like some of those cards, though.

Speaking of the Witcher, who is hotter: Shani or Triss? I sadly couldn't find a better shot of the former, who in my opinion is the better looking of the two. It does make me wonder if Andrzej Sapkowski has a thing for redheads, though. Which, of course, the two of us would then have in common.

Obviously they're both drawn (and written from the supporting works I've seen) to be very attractive but in my "honest" playthroughs (where I was doing what I wanted to do as opposed to seeing the C+C choices) I'd end up annoying Triss for Shani's sake... I just liked the idea of Gerald, this figure of near folklore with a huge reputation before the game even begins and who over the course of the game does all the stuff he does chooses someone who is basically "normal"... living with her Grandma, studying and working as a doctor over the powerful, influential sorceress who has a plush townhouse.

Talking of Gothic I played the travesty that was Arcania. Has there been another series that has fallen so far? Gothic 3 was bad enough but once the (huge number) of bugs got worked out it was actually a pretty good game... Arcania has no such redeeming features. Off the top of my head only Commandos (when they turned it into a generic shooter) comes close although I'm sure there are others.

Hemingway

Quote from: Inkidu on April 13, 2011, 05:58:55 PM
My problem with BioShock 2 wasn't the story. It was okay, and it's damn hard to top the first. Maybe they shouldn't have tried. I don't blame them for trying though. I just hated the fact that you were basically Jack again. Seriously, they missed a huge opportunity. You should have been on part with all the big daddies, big sister should have been a single recurring boss that you only drove off, and splicers (save the delightfully foppish brute) should only give you trouble in large numbers.

I agree, very much so. I don't exactly feel like a Big Daddy when a single hit from a pistol knocks down a good quarter or so of my health!

Personally, and this may be somewhat controversial, I don't think making the player a Big Daddy was a good idea in the first place. It might just be that I never found them that interesting, or saw the appeal. The weapons aren't terribly interesting, either. The machine gun is literally the same weapon as the tommygun from the first game, which doesn't even make sense.

Inkidu

Plus the fact that he could switch to his drill? Really? However, I'm willing to write those things off as "things that just have to be to have a game." Seriously though, getting killed by a splicer? Lame. -_-;
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Wolfy


Sabby

Quote from: Inkidu on April 13, 2011, 05:58:55 PM
My problem with BioShock 2 wasn't the story. It was okay, and it's damn hard to top the first. Maybe they shouldn't have tried. I don't blame them for trying though. I just hated the fact that you were basically Jack again. Seriously, they missed a huge opportunity. You should have been on part with all the big daddies, big sister should have been a single recurring boss that you only drove off, and splicers (save the delightfully foppish brute) should only give you trouble in large numbers.

The road to video game hell is paved with miss opportunities though.

Oh, on the two redheads thing. Both, but that was never an option, and I don't particularly care for redheads.

Huh... never thought about it that way... that actually does sound kind of awesome, dropping Splicers in 2s and 3s like flies. Would have been enough to set itself apart. And I love the idea of a recurring Big Sister now that you've mentioned it. I've always loved rivalry in games, hyping up one enemy with multiple encounters.

Oh, and as for playing a Big Daddy... it could have been handled better, but overall I liked The Alpha Series. Faster, weaker, more intelligent, more skills, but ultimately uncontrollable. Just like an ALPHA, or FIRST series would be like with anything as ambitious as a Big Daddy. It makes perfect sense to me, from a Fluff perspective.

Sabby

Playing Turok, the mandatory 'realistic reboot'. The aiming is atrocious (like all Turok games) but I like it so far :) love its use of physics... makes the dinosaurs movements look very genuine, with their tails swishing around in relation to how they move or turn. The ragdoll for people is pretty standard stuff, but the dinosaurs ragdolls thrash and kick and freak out when they get shot down.

I especially love the grass. Each tuft has its own floppy physics that wave gently in the breeze, or flap from the blast waves of explosions, or rustle about when a raptor is slinking through. It looks great when you see the grass rustling Jurassic Park style and then a soldier is yanked under, a tail flicking up out of the top, grass waving and rustling as the guy is mauled.

Wyrd

The new Turok game's multiplayer was one of the worst and laughable I've ever seen. It's just a bunch of squeakers running around each other and trying to get the little knife execution. :P

I'm playing some Halo Reach today   
Ragtime Dandies!

consortium11

Just had a quick run around in Morrowind... otherwise known as when the Elder Scrolls used to still be pretty good.

Wyrd

:P Oh come off of it. Guess you don't give a rats ass about Skyrim
Ragtime Dandies!

Hemingway

I've been playing quite a bit of Crysis 2 MP. It's pretty decent. I'm also decent enough at it that I get told to stop cheating occasionally, so all is well. It's remarkable how much easier games get if you try to play intelligently.

It is occasionally frustrating, though. The lag compensation occasionally leads to dying behind walls and such. Worst of all is that it doesn't always save your progress. Meaning you can unlock a new gun, only to find out the next time you play you still haven't unlocked it, and all the experience you racked up since has disappeared.

Inkidu

Quote from: consortium11 on April 14, 2011, 03:52:04 PM
Just had a quick run around in Morrowind... otherwise known as when the Elder Scrolls used to still be pretty good.
*Rips the rose-colored shades of nostalgia from Consortium's face and smashes them into tiny, tiny bits* I've played Morrowind and I've played Oblivion, and I can tell you Oblivion did a lot to fix the balancing issues that basically made Morrowind unplayable to anyone but the most absurdly devoted. Sure, if you wanted to play a simple warrior and just kill everything in your path that was easy enough, but God help you if you wanted to be sneaky. That meant hours upon hours of sneaking around the starter towns building up your sneak skill until you were bored to tears. Morrowind promised me a real play-as-you go experience, but hell if I didn't have to do seventeen math problems just to figure out how much I had to up a skill for it to be good. Yeah, they had to eighty-six a lot of the little stuff in Oblivion. Look what you got out of the deal. What has to be the most real-worldy engine ever devised. They brought full (if limited) voice acting and in general a much more immersible experience than Morrowind. 

Oblivion isn't perfect, but a lot of the problems it has were always in Morrowind to begin with, yeah, and in some small ways it might seem a step back, but as a much more "real" experience give me Oblivion every time. I hope they take what they learn and put it into Skyrim though. That's going to be awesome.
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Sabby

It also destroyed any sense of immersion, wonderment, any incentive to explore really. I mean, why explore, when you have quick travel and EVERY FUCKING SQUARE MILE IS IDENTICAL. EVERY CAVE IS THE SAME. EVERY DUNGEON HAS LEVEL SPECIFIC MONSTERS. So where is the purpose in exploring at all? Where is the incentive?

Oh, right. Its in Morrowind, where around any mountain there could be a wizards tower, a sunken temple, a crumbling bridge or a floating prison. Morrowind had everything that Oblivion didn't, but sadly lacked what it did do well. Good graphics and controls and gameplay.

Inkidu

Quote from: Sabby on April 14, 2011, 04:53:01 PM
It also destroyed any sense of immersion, wonderment, any incentive to explore really. I mean, why explore, when you have quick travel and EVERY FUCKING SQUARE MILE IS IDENTICAL. EVERY CAVE IS THE SAME. EVERY DUNGEON HAS LEVEL SPECIFIC MONSTERS. So where is the purpose in exploring at all? Where is the incentive?

Oh, right. Its in Morrowind, where around any mountain there could be a wizards tower, a sunken temple, a crumbling bridge or a floating prison. Morrowind had everything that Oblivion didn't, but sadly lacked what it did do well. Good graphics and controls and gameplay.
You don't have to use quick travel, Morrowind had samey dungeons too, and honestly there are some times I don't want to spend walking or running back to the nearest town it wasn't that varied and so great to look at (even for the generation) I'm kind of with you on the leveled monster design, but I can see the point.

A.) Either everything will be too weak or too strong and you'll be frustrated.
B.) You'll get randomly ganked by a monster you have no idea of what it's toughness is and get frustrated.

So it's a cheap fix, but makes the game more playable.
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Sabby

Skyrim will be interesting... if it only has the gameplay worked out, even if it somehow manages to solve its level scaling problems, it will still be a disappointment. The only possible way to save it is immersion, and the game engine used for Oblivion and Fallout 3 is just atrocious when it comes to immersion... Skyrim has a LOT of work to do before its ready for prime time.

It needs to be as approachable/playable as Oblivion, but diverse in both environments and challenge, and all this while tip toeing the line between spoon fed level scaling and the 'too hard/too easy' fixed levels.

Very tough project to balance. I don't envy Bethesda.

Hemingway

I thought Fallout was a lot better than Oblivion in that regard, at least. I just hope Daedra are actually dangerous, as they should be.

Inkidu

Actually from my standpoint every time I have to look at a stat it breaks immersion. Dead space does this well because every "stat-like" thing you look at is done so that it looks like Issac is looking at the same thing. Every time I open up an arbitrary menu screen that breaks immersion. If my character actually pulled out and opened a journal and it was sectioned off by ribbon bookmarks that would be awesome. Menus break immersion because immersion relies entirely (and I challenge you to prove me wrong on this) on making sure the fourth wall is not broken. This is obviously impossible to do 100 percent, but a true immersion comes from believing you're in the world on some level. It's why so many games have the HUD disappear while you're not needing it and pop up when you get shot.

Skyrim is using a new engine that is what the Aurora Engine should have been. For instance: If you throw a sword in the mud two people might come along and fight over it, a kid might pick it up and ask if you want it back, or it might just lie there forever. It's probably hype but now NPCs have not only routines and schedules but whole lives. Kill a shop owner? Her brother might take over the business and even sell you stuff if you can't be tied to the murder.
 
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Wolfy

Quote from: Inkidu on April 14, 2011, 05:13:59 PM
Actually from my standpoint every time I have to look at a stat it breaks immersion. Dead space does this well because every "stat-like" thing you look at is done so that it looks like Issac is looking at the same thing. Every time I open up an arbitrary menu screen that breaks immersion. If my character actually pulled out and opened a journal and it was sectioned off by ribbon bookmarks that would be awesome. Menus break immersion because immersion relies entirely (and I challenge you to prove me wrong on this) on making sure the fourth wall is not broken. This is obviously impossible to do 100 percent, but a true immersion comes from believing you're in the world on some level. It's why so many games have the HUD disappear while you're not needing it and pop up when you get shot.

Skyrim is using a new engine that is what the Aurora Engine should have been. For instance: If you throw a sword in the mud two people might come along and fight over it, a kid might pick it up and ask if you want it back, or it might just lie there forever. It's probably hype but now NPCs have not only routines and schedules but whole lives. Kill a shop owner? Her brother might take over the business and even sell you stuff if you can't be tied to the murder.


That sounds awesome.

But what isn't awesome are games that use a Menu system that doesn't pause the game. :/

Now, let me clarify, it's all fine in Dead Space because there are moments of reprieve where you aren't being swarmed by enemies.

But let's take a game like say..Alone in the Dark, where not only do you have to fight enemies, you have to also open the menu (Which doesn't pause the game) Combine items (Such as "Rag + Bottle" for a molotov) and then select it.

All while enemies are baring down on you. :/

dready

Here's the drop on Portal 2:

Single player mode is the same character from the first game, Chel, who was put back into a 'stasis' chamber (which is more like a studio apartment) after being discovered by 'the man' after escape. You start off trying to escape. The second attempt at escape sort of fails, and you reactivate Glados. (if you think that is a spoiler then you don't know what a spoiler is in this game) You therefore multitask through escaping and running tests again.

Co-op's storyline is not that known for, but as Wolfy put up it does appear to be during the fall of Glados. There's a few notes of her 'stop that, what are you doing?' insanity when the robot characters high five each other, and stating her distaste for the testees when they wave within vicinity of her cameras.

Also, Cave Johnson and personality spheres: hopefully welcome additions to the storyline mix.

consortium11

Quote from: Wyrd on April 14, 2011, 03:55:55 PM
:P Oh come off of it. Guess you don't give a rats ass about Skyrim

I didn't hate Oblivion... I just found it distinctly average. I enjoyed it for what it was... a fun world explorer (at least the first few times you played it) and a not bad first person hack and slash game but I never considered it "good"... and was aghast at all the "RPG of the Year" type awards it won.

As for Skyrim... I don't know. Considering that I'm not a huge fan of Oblivion and hate vanilla Fallout 3 with a passion I'm not optimistic but then again hopefully working with Obsidian and seeing how well received certain aspects of New Vegas were (notably C+C) has rubbed off. A lot of the stuff they're talking about implementing is stuff they took out of Morrowind for Oblivion so if it returns to its roots it's a plus and the new engine looks quite impressive... at least compared to what came before. That said the new menu system looks absolutely atrocious...

Quote from: Inkidu on April 14, 2011, 04:47:15 PM
*Rips the rose-colored shades of nostalgia from Consortium's face and smashes them into tiny, tiny bits* I've played Morrowind and I've played Oblivion, and I can tell you Oblivion did a lot to fix the balancing issues that basically made Morrowind unplayable to anyone but the most absurdly devoted.

I'd actually say Oblivion is one of the least balanced games around with your choices of how and when to level up making the game range from exceptionally easy to virtually impossible (outside of exploiting the pretty poor AI) and certain combinations of equipment (that you can achieve almost by accident) making the game an absolute cakewalk. Morrowind has its own balancing issues... the endgame gets pretty easy even if you deliberately try to nix your chances but compared to Oblivion I'd say it's a masterpiece of balance.

Quote from: Inkidu on April 14, 2011, 04:47:15 PMSure, if you wanted to play a simple warrior and just kill everything in your path that was easy enough, but God help you if you wanted to be sneaky.

And God help you in Oblivion if you tagged any non-combat skill that you used a lot.

Quote from: Inkidu on April 14, 2011, 04:47:15 PMThat meant hours upon hours of sneaking around the starter towns building up your sneak skill until you were bored to tears. Morrowind promised me a real play-as-you go experience, but hell if I didn't have to do seventeen math problems just to figure out how much I had to up a skill for it to be good.

Is it any worse than Oblivions "swim for 400 miles/jump under a rock repeatedly/multicast a simple spell" to improve your skills there?

Quote from: Inkidu on April 14, 2011, 04:47:15 PMYeah, they had to eighty-six a lot of the little stuff in Oblivion.

I'd consider a lot of the stuff they 86'd pretty important... such as nerfed fatigue and luck, skill affecting whether you hit with a weapon, limited choices and consequences (especially with factions), skills being important while being part of a faction (such as not being able to become a high ranking member of the mages guild while knowing two spells and rarely using either of them), dynamic merchant economies and top level equipment actually being rare instead of stupidly common.

Quote from: Inkidu on April 14, 2011, 04:47:15 PMLook what you got out of the deal. What has to be the most real-worldy engine ever devised.

I'm not sure quite what you mean here. The scale of the engine was no different to Morrowind (it may have been a slightly larger area I suppose) although it did look prettier. Do you mean the Radient AI? I found that basically redundant. By the development teams own admission they had to basically nerf it because they couldn't program it well enough and virtually nothing they did couldn't have been achieved by well written scripts. Characters moving was fun... but they essentially moved in set patterns and didn't do anything (people would sit and yawn on a chair for 5 hours, or stare at a wall for 30 minutes) and the only time it was really noticeable was when it screwed up... such as guards shooting each other with arrows during a fight and then turning on each other. It promised too much and didn't deliver enough.

Quote from: Inkidu on April 14, 2011, 04:47:15 PMThey brought full (if limited) voice acting and in general a much more immersible experience than Morrowind.

I can take or leave full voice acting... especially if every other example of it is two NPC's saying "I saw a mud crab the other day/frightful creature" in the same voice (weren't there only about 4 voice actors for the generic characters anyway?)

As for "immersion"... I don't know. To begin with I'm beginning to dislike the term as a whole... it seems to be thrown around a lot without actually meaning anything (in many ways like the term progressive is in politics, especially in the UK). Secondly, even if it was an improvement on Morrowind (and I don't distinctly remember it being so) it's not as if Oblivion was an immersive game itself: the previously mentioned repeating voice acting, the levelling system that had generic bandit number 4 be better equipped and more dangerous late in the game then super evil wizard or mighty warrior early on, the fact my character can be the Archmage while barely knowing any spells... and the head of the fighter's guild and a high ranking thieves guild member (although no-one would know you're the head) and the leader of the Assasins guild and the Arena Champion and (with the expansions) a member of the Knights of the Nine and a God and no-one points that out...

There's also moments where it looked like Beth just lacked the courage of their convictions and in doing so really broke any sense of immersion. For example near the end of the Dark Brotherhood quests you've recovered the traitor's mother's head. If you drop this in front of the group when all the leaders are together the traitor starts acting strangely and blatantly suspiciously... yet there's nothing you can do to point this out or investigate further and you're left in the same situation as if you hadn't done it at all. Beth went to the effort of putting in the characters reaction to his mother's head... but then didn't follow through by allowing you do anything with it... and that's a clear break from any immersion you had.

Quote from: Inkidu on April 14, 2011, 04:47:15 PMOblivion isn't perfect, but a lot of the problems it has were always in Morrowind to begin with, yeah, and in some small ways it might seem a step back, but as a much more "real" experience give me Oblivion every time. I hope they take what they learn and put it into Skyrim though. That's going to be awesome.

As I say I'm not particularly optimistic about Skyrim but I'm not massively negative about it either. Some of the changes look promising (notably the ones they're returning from Morrowind), others less so.

Quote from: Inkidu on April 14, 2011, 04:57:27 PM
You don't have to use quick travel, Morrowind had samey dungeons too, and honestly there are some times I don't want to spend walking or running back to the nearest town it wasn't that varied and so great to look at (even for the generation) I'm kind of with you on the leveled monster design, but I can see the point.

A.) Either everything will be too weak or too strong and you'll be frustrated.
B.) You'll get randomly ganked by a monster you have no idea of what it's toughness is and get frustrated.

So it's a cheap fix, but makes the game more playable.

I don't really see how level scaling (at least to the extent Oblivion takes it) makes the game more playable. If you power play it the game becomes incredibly easy (you'll remain level 1 but be a combat god) and if you tag the wrong skills and level up normally you'll find yourself being massively under powered compared to every enemy. In addition if we're putting any weight on immersion then it completely breaks it... the previously mentioned fact that generic monsters and enemies late in the game are far more deadly and well equipped than supposedly huge threats early on (the fact that the great evil necromancer at the end of the Mages's Questline completed early would get tooled by a bandit from late game) and also the simple fact that my level 1 newly escaped prisoner can basically go anywhere and facing anything in a roughly even fight...

Quote from: Hemingway on April 14, 2011, 05:10:18 PM
I thought Fallout was a lot better than Oblivion in that regard, at least. I just hope Daedra are actually dangerous, as they should be.

I know I'm in a pretty small minority here but I found Fallout 3 incredibly poor all round... and again if we're putting weight on immersion then it fails on that front almost entirely. Your guns break down after firing a few rounds but rogue robots patrolling the land are still functional? The fact that your guns in poor condition meaning that you can shoot a human in the head about 9 times and they still live? Plot holes a mile wide throughout the main quest? All the food being irradiated yet virtually no-one suffering from rad poisoning? Computers and subway lights all working despite no noticeable power source? Settlements without even the pretence of being able to support themselves? NPC humans being able to walk through highly irradiated areas but your character dying when he even comes near? A truly broken morality and faction system? And of course, invincible kids...

Hemingway

Dammit if Baldur's Gate 2 isn't one of the most frustrating games ever. I mean, seriously, did no one at any point stop and go "guys, maybe giving the enemy spells that charm the entire player party, which they use the moment they see the player party isn't the best idea"? I mean, this is a game of chance! If I'm lucky and a few people save against these charm spells, I might stand a chance. If not, I might as well load right away. These spells last for minutes! Come on! What were they thinking!?

Antioch

Call of Duty black ops right here :P Multiplayer is fun.

Wolfy

Quote from: Antioch on April 15, 2011, 01:16:46 PM
Call of Duty black ops right here :P Multiplayer is fun.

:/ I got tired of it fast. Seriously...the multiplayer is fun up to a point, but then you realize it's basically just the same thing over and over and over again...

And the way people take it so seriously is just ridiculous. @_@

Funguy81

Playing Mass Effect 2. I think its one of the best games thats came out in recent times.