What are you playing? [SPOILER TAGS PLEASE]

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

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Hemingway

What makes countries pissed off is failing to intercept UFOs and poor performance during missions. Terror missions in particular. Ignoring missions is terrible, so sometimes you just gotta do those terror missions. I forget how it's calculated, but I think UFOpaedia explains it.

Building longer range radar and new bases is also essential for catching UFOs. Just because you can't see them, that doesn't mean they're not there.

Inkidu

Quote from: Hemingway on February 08, 2012, 07:37:11 PM
What makes countries pissed off is failing to intercept UFOs and poor performance during missions. Terror missions in particular. Ignoring missions is terrible, so sometimes you just gotta do those terror missions. I forget how it's calculated, but I think UFOpaedia explains it.

Building longer range radar and new bases is also essential for catching UFOs. Just because you can't see them, that doesn't mean they're not there.
I get that, and I was doing well. At least now I know how to get in a UFO though. Sheesh, you're looking for the one bit of lightly colored metal.

Anyway, I like that, and I get it's random, but it does lead the the occasional Random Number God screw over because the first couple of bases you made (of which you have to to get a living quarters first because if you try and get some radar up in there you will be invaded by aliens) didn't pick up anything and you did mediocre at best on those early terror missions (because good lord are they a killing field). So by the time you get to build a third base you've got no money. In a way it can't be helped and that makes it more frustrating than normal. The only thing I actually fault X-Com for is the extraneous research options of nothingness. That didn't help you bastards. I could have been cruising Detroit in a pimped out UFO, but noooo. I thought researching aliens might make them easier to kill.
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Sabby

I has Kingdoms of Amalur. If all you want is a loot heavy RPG (OMG A PURPLE DAGGER COVERED IN POISON!) then you'll love it, but don't expect anything from the games story or lore... I know, it's weird, the hype is so quick to remind us a FUCKING NY TIMES BEST SELLER WROTE THIS SHIT and it's honestly the blandest fantasy game I've played in recent memory. At least Sacred 2 threw an Egyptian Terminator at us, but this makes Dragon Age look innovative.

Hemingway

Quote from: Inkidu on February 08, 2012, 07:57:05 PM
Anyway, I like that, and I get it's random, but it does lead the the occasional Random Number God screw over because the first couple of bases you made (of which you have to to get a living quarters first because if you try and get some radar up in there you will be invaded by aliens) didn't pick up anything and you did mediocre at best on those early terror missions (because good lord are they a killing field). So by the time you get to build a third base you've got no money. In a way it can't be helped and that makes it more frustrating than normal. The only thing I actually fault X-Com for is the extraneous research options of nothingness. That didn't help you bastards. I could have been cruising Detroit in a pimped out UFO, but noooo. I thought researching aliens might make them easier to kill.

I may be misunderstanding you, but I think you're under a misapprehension. UFOs appear regardless of whether you can detect them. It's also not a good idea to expand too soon, so having a first few bases sounds a bit superfluous. I think I had three bases when I did the final mission last time, so that should give you some idea. If you've got North America and Europe covered, a lot of the work is done.

As for terror missions, yeah, they are a pain. I'm not a novice at that game, but damn, I still dread going into those. I mean, you have to be quick, because if too many civilians die, you'll get a really low score. On the other hand, move too fast and you'll start losing guys left and right. Using smoke grenades and flares ( if fighting at night, god help you ) is essential.

Researching aliens isn't just for trivia either. If you capture live ones, those can be especially useful. It's how you unlock psi abilities and ... well, you'll need them for the story, too.

Quote from: Sabby on February 08, 2012, 08:00:53 PM
I has Kingdoms of Amalur. If all you want is a loot heavy RPG (OMG A PURPLE DAGGER COVERED IN POISON!) then you'll love it, but don't expect anything from the games story or lore... I know, it's weird, the hype is so quick to remind us a FUCKING NY TIMES BEST SELLER WROTE THIS SHIT and it's honestly the blandest fantasy game I've played in recent memory. At least Sacred 2 threw an Egyptian Terminator at us, but this makes Dragon Age look innovative.

Mine just finished downloading. I expected all of that. Damn NYT best sellers. Ever since Dragonlance, I use that crap as a to-avoid-list. But I enjoyed the demo well enough, and ... Metal Gear did take care of my immediate gaming needs, and I still haven't even opened MGS4, but ... still. RPG! I'll be getting both this, and the Darkness 2.

Sabby


Inkidu

Quote from: Hemingway on February 08, 2012, 08:17:21 PM
I may be misunderstanding you, but I think you're under a misapprehension. UFOs appear regardless of whether you can detect them. It's also not a good idea to expand too soon, so having a first few bases sounds a bit superfluous. I think I had three bases when I did the final mission last time, so that should give you some idea. If you've got North America and Europe covered, a lot of the work is done.

As for terror missions, yeah, they are a pain. I'm not a novice at that game, but damn, I still dread going into those. I mean, you have to be quick, because if too many civilians die, you'll get a really low score. On the other hand, move too fast and you'll start losing guys left and right. Using smoke grenades and flares ( if fighting at night, god help you ) is essential.

Researching aliens isn't just for trivia either. If you capture live ones, those can be especially useful. It's how you unlock psi abilities and ... well, you'll need them for the story, too.

Mine just finished downloading. I expected all of that. Damn NYT best sellers. Ever since Dragonlance, I use that crap as a to-avoid-list. But I enjoyed the demo well enough, and ... Metal Gear did take care of my immediate gaming needs, and I still haven't even opened MGS4, but ... still. RPG! I'll be getting both this, and the Darkness 2.
Nope, I'm well aware of the fact that UFOs are all around me, so I think you kind of missed what I was saying.

It is entirely possible, and somewhat likely that very little to no UFOs will show up near your beginning base. Since your funding is directly linked to basically how many aliens you kill no UFOs equals no cash. Normally I set up a second base after the end of January of 99. It's just when I know I will have the most money to actually do it, and I usually set it up on the cusp of Europe and the Middle East (because they're both clusters of funding ), but I'll hold off if it's a bad first month. It usually isn't.

What I ran into was I had a low encounter month, and because I actually won a daylight terror mission the game began speeding up the UFOs top speeds, and they'd outstrip my outdated Terran interceptors. Stupid alien research! I guess it's realistic if you believe the approach is "Fuck understanding, just give me something to paste them."

Oh, and sorry, Sabby. Australia is screwed.... perpetually screwed in X-Com. They usually don't see a lot of activity, but they don't pull a lot of clout when it comes to funding paramilitary Area 51 organizations.

Also, what people forget about the NYT Best Seller list is that it's based off the gross of a book. While the amount of money a book makes doesn't make it good, it is a good arbitrary measure for trying to assess it's good. It works on the premise that fifty million people can't be wrong, so to speak. Remember that both Twilight and The Dresden Files have been on the list.
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Capone

Quote from: Sabby on February 08, 2012, 08:00:53 PM
I has Kingdoms of Amalur. If all you want is a loot heavy RPG (OMG A PURPLE DAGGER COVERED IN POISON!) then you'll love it, but don't expect anything from the games story or lore... I know, it's weird, the hype is so quick to remind us a FUCKING NY TIMES BEST SELLER WROTE THIS SHIT and it's honestly the blandest fantasy game I've played in recent memory. At least Sacred 2 threw an Egyptian Terminator at us, but this makes Dragon Age look innovative.

That anyone actually hires R. A. Salvatore to write anything is beyond me. It kind of gives me hope that if he can do it, well shit, so can I!

First printing of the Resident Evil: Revelations case sleeve is mis-spelled. I just checked mine, and it does indeed say Revelaitons on the side.

I'm keeping it.

Frozen Flame

I don't usually play casual games, but after beating No More Heroes 2 the other day, I found myself on a Burrito Bison/Kingdom Rush bender.

I suck at "true" RTS games, but I really like Kindgom Rush's "tower defense" concept. A lot.

Kazyth

I would be playing Star Wars: The Old Republic right now, but they always seem to patch on the nights I cannot sleep.  So I make due with Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together and random internet pokings.
A rose by any other name... still has thorns you can prick someone with. - Me.


zemo8801

Calling it a night but was just testing out the G53 in battlefield 3. Now I need to rest and try to get my next challenge done.
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Hemingway

I'm playing Kingdoms of Amalur, and ... it's a fun game! I mean, I'm an RPG kind of guy, and so anything that lets me wander around and swing a sword has some merit. When it has an interesting class system on top of that, I'm pretty happy. The story and world are incredibly generic ( if this were a book, I wouldn't have made it past the first few pages ), but that's okay. I'm easily distracted by shiny things.

LunarSage

I'm stuck in Killer Croc's Lair in Batman: Arkham Asylum. 

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide
I've grabbed 4 out of 5 spores but I cannot find the last one.  It doesn't help that every 10 seconds I either have to run to avoid Croc below me as he destroys the planks I'm walking on or hit his collar with a batarang when he pops up.  It's hard to focus on where I have and haven't been and there's no in game map!  I'm getting close to just giving up on this game, despite how awesome it's been so far. 

The game has been really tough in parts (I've died quite a bit)... and I'm playing on Easy!  >.<

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Lirliel

If I remember correctly you can put on your 'sensor' to pick up the pollen of the spores, that way you can find it easy Lunar. At least, afaik been a while since I played.
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Brandon

I got to try out the darkness 2 today and found out that I cant play it at all. This is becoming more and more common in PC games but Im finding myself feeling quite ill when I play these games for an extended period of time on my PC. This is because of the narrow field of view that I can not adjust without doing major edits in some key files

In fact this is so common that I think Im going to stop buying FPS games that dont have adjustable field of view options like serious sam. I understand that narrow FoV is done because consoles tend to lack the necessary processing power to render things outside these fixed FoVs but thats no excuse for the PC market which tends to have vastly superior processing power to current generation consoles.
Brandon: What makes him tick? - My on's and off's - My open games thread - My Away Thread
Limits: I do not, under any circumstances play out scenes involving M/M, non-con, or toilet play

Hemingway

The Darkness 2 is downloading right now. I was going to wait until payday ( friday ), but ... why? It makes no difference!

Inkidu

Quote from: Brandon on February 09, 2012, 12:57:52 PM
I got to try out the darkness 2 today and found out that I cant play it at all. This is becoming more and more common in PC games but Im finding myself feeling quite ill when I play these games for an extended period of time on my PC. This is because of the narrow field of view that I can not adjust without doing major edits in some key files

In fact this is so common that I think Im going to stop buying FPS games that dont have adjustable field of view options like serious sam. I understand that narrow FoV is done because consoles tend to lack the necessary processing power to render things outside these fixed FoVs but thats no excuse for the PC market which tends to have vastly superior processing power to current generation consoles.
I don't thinks it's processing power. I think it has more to do with stylistic choice. Less realistic FPSs tend to go for the wider field of view, and the more realistic ones tend to narrow it down for effect. Because I've played games on console with wide Fields of view that are certainly processor heavy.
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Hemingway

Hmm. Kotaku doesn't think I should play the Darkness 2. I disagree. Of the things they mentioned, only the length really bothers me. If it's true you can finish it in 3-4 hours, it's ... ugh. Why do developers insist on making shorter and shorter games? If it's fun and the story is good, then I can live with it, but ... seriously, Snake Eater took me around 17 hours to finish, and it's not like I did a lot of backtracking through the same areas where enemies had conveniently respawned. A lot of it is cutscenes ( a whole lot! like, hours! ), but even if half the game was a cutscene, it'd be far longer than many recent games. God. I remember when games used to be long. I remember when games used to be 8 hours long, and we thought those were short games!

Inkidu

Quote from: Hemingway on February 09, 2012, 03:46:26 PM
Hmm. Kotaku doesn't think I should play the Darkness 2. I disagree. Of the things they mentioned, only the length really bothers me. If it's true you can finish it in 3-4 hours, it's ... ugh. Why do developers insist on making shorter and shorter games? If it's fun and the story is good, then I can live with it, but ... seriously, Snake Eater took me around 17 hours to finish, and it's not like I did a lot of backtracking through the same areas where enemies had conveniently respawned. A lot of it is cutscenes ( a whole lot! like, hours! ), but even if half the game was a cutscene, it'd be far longer than many recent games. God. I remember when games used to be long. I remember when games used to be 8 hours long, and we thought those were short games!
Actually, games haven't gotten shorter by much. Snake Eater is only about eight hours (if you're slow) of actual game play. I know, I've done it. The rest is just cutscene. People have run throughs of Doom that only top out at 4 hours, and they're not speed runs. Modern design choices have more to do with it than, "They're just making them shorter."
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Oniya

Yeah, but I remember when game length was a selling point.  My copy of SaGa Frontiers has a bullet-point on the back that says 'over 140 hours of gameplay!'.
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Hemingway

Well, length or no length ( that' what she said -- the latter. p-p-p-pre-emptive innuendo-do-do ), the Darkness 2 delivers on atmosphere and story. It reminds me of the atmosphere of old World of Darkness, really. It's got the vital component, too, which is Jenny. A review of the original the Darkness called a scene from that game the most authentic romantic scene in any video game. It completely deserved that. The game remains one of the most emotionally harrowing experiences in any game, and with the Darkness 2, it seems, they haven't ignored that.

Capone

Quote from: Oniya on February 09, 2012, 05:23:43 PM
Yeah, but I remember when game length was a selling point.  My copy of SaGa Frontiers has a bullet-point on the back that says 'over 140 hours of gameplay!'.

Vanquish was a five hour game and it took me all of January.

I don't want long games anymore.

Sabby

Games are like penises. Length is nice to have, but momentum is more important. A 13 inch game that can't hold my attention for 3 hours won't get a call back.

Brandon

I have to agree with Sabby, length by itself isnt as important as whether you want to keep playing the game. Take X-Com, I could beat it in 4-6 hours if I really tried and luck was on my side but the fact that its so deep and requires intricate strategy makes the experience really fun for me. As a result I will play that game over and over and over and over again. Now take final fantasy 13 that has...how many hours worth in it? Ill say 80+ since that seems to be their standard lately but I cant finish the game at all because it doesnt draw me in. I cant even play the first 20 hours because its just so badly paced and uninteresting

With that all said, I still believe that a full price $60 dollar game requires at least 8 hours of solid single player game play. Thats my personal, completely subjective, standard. If a game does not meet that then I always wait for the first markdown to $40 if not less
Brandon: What makes him tick? - My on's and off's - My open games thread - My Away Thread
Limits: I do not, under any circumstances play out scenes involving M/M, non-con, or toilet play

Hemingway

I prefer games that do both, and any game that doesn't is permanently barred from greatness. If someone took the most recent game I played that was both long and riveting, namely Snake Eater, and condensed it into just three hours, it just wouldn't work. It simply wouldn't, because a major part of what makes the story so great, the interaction with the other characters, would not have enough time to build up in a somewhat natural and believable way.

Snake Eater spoilers
Snake and EVA, that's what I'm talking about. They meet, and you can immediately assume there's going to be something romantic going on. Nothing happens right away. Nothing happens for a long time, actually. EVA starts to make a move on Snake, but he rejects her, several times. Meanwhile, they're starting to earn each others' trust, and they're risking their lives the whole time. Now, I believe it's a scientifically proven fact that people who go through extreme situations together are more likely to form some sort of strong bond, than if they hadn't. And that's exactly what's going on. Toward the end, she nearly dies, and he's been injured so many times over that you can practically see them limping through the jungle together, while people are shooting at them. And even then, it's not clear anything's going to happen. That way, when it does, it feels natural, it's not just forced in, it feels inevitable. And then it turns out the entire thing was an elaborate plot, and because you've been part of the whole thing and because it felt, in a sense, real, it hurts, too. It carries actual emotional weight!

It just wouldn't have worked if there hadn't been time. It's like the latest Modern Warfare installment, where they introduce a new character, and ... somehow, you're supposed to care what happens to him. As if the five hours or so of killing people is going to make you give two shits whether, at the end of the game, he's dead or not. Who cares? That was literally what I was thinking when the game ended.

And that concludes my essay on emotion in games, and the importance of length.

Whatever. I'm in a writing kind of mood.

Inkidu

Quote from: Oniya on February 09, 2012, 05:23:43 PM
Yeah, but I remember when game length was a selling point.  My copy of SaGa Frontiers has a bullet-point on the back that says 'over 140 hours of gameplay!'.
Yeah, but you have to ask yourself what the game is making you do to get that 140hrs. A lot of JRPGs tend to garner their length through grinding. Very few games actually come close to keeping their hour promise. Skyrim provides hours of exploration alone, but even some people find it to be, "Raid a dungeon, grab up the loot, sell it, repeat." It can get like that, especially if you're looking for dragon shouts. No game will ever deliver the amount of hours it promises, not for me at least. If I have to do the same thing over and over again I've got to find something else to do.

Take X-Com for instance. It's got depth, and you could play it for hours, but some people would see it as the same cut and paste environs scrambled up, and losing half your people per terror mission. It's entirely possible, and they may never play it again. How people perceive their gaming experience has more to do with hours than any developer.

Speaking of X-Com. I was just thinking about it and a (not saying 50s era) X-Com FPS would be awesome. I'm not saying it would be the original, but a shooter in the universe would be this side of epic. I'll tell you why.

I was doing a terror mission in Rio. Luckily it was daytime. This is going to be primarily from the movement of one soldier a squadie codenamed "Ronin". That's what I do, I give code names.

Ronin takes the role of support in my squad. He carries the grenades and other stuff that would bog a sniper or heavy down. This makes him too important to be a scout obviously (poor bastards). Now Ronin has only been in one mission, a four man raid of a small UFO. Anyway, the hatch is down and the men and women begin to fan out and clear the LZ. My troops are presented with a new alien threat (Floaters). Still using Earth-tech assault rifles it takes them the whole turn to get it clear. Eventually it looks clear and the turn ends. Low and behold a grenade goes off (probably 0 primed). There goes six of the ten-man squad. Ronin's still alive. The squad now has one sharpshooter, two scouts with laser pistols, and Ronin.

The scout immediately sets upon a floater. A swift burst of auto fire from Ronin cuts it down. The scout advances fighting through the smoke and haze and Ronin guns down another two floaters with some luck, and a little help from the sharpshooter too. Well eventually more aliens than the team can handle show up and Ronin is out of bullets. He checks his belt, no clip. It looks like time is up for him when he spots a dead comrade by the loading ramp of the skyranger. Running to him he picks up a laser pistol and hunkers down behind the landing gear. With a coordinated effort they fend of the aliens. Ronin even takes a wound but keeps fighting.

I'd like to say it ended well, and the survivors returned to base, but the aliens hit the decimated squad with another grenade and everyone else was killed, Ronin fell unconscious, and then HQ lost the transmission. 

So while I'm as excited as anyone for Enemy Unknown. I'm not going to be so narrow-viewed as to think that X-Com wouldn't make a good FPS. Now I don't really know if the 2K Marin game will pull it off, but if you took the strategy of X-Com and applied it to an FPS you'd get some interesting results.

A random jumble of missions for your soldier to undertake, doesn't have to be the same guy either. Perhaps work panic in their as screen shake or a loss of the aiming reticule. Your end of level ranking could influence your research into new tech and or funding for buying armor and upgrades. Some set pieces. If you get too badly shot up you're out for a month (though obviously you'd never see yourself in a hospital bed for the sake of gaming) and when you take your next mission things aren't so good as when you last left. The fear of your weapons not working against a muton or cyberdisk. Heck, even the ability to get psionics, or a flight suit. Highly-destructible environments.

I think it would be worth looking into, and if done right it could only broaden the appeal of the franchise. I'm hoping that the 2K Marin job is at least decent. 



If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.