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What have you finished and what did you think (WHYFAWDYT) thread
Topic Started: Dec 13 2013, 12:06 PM (33,529 Views)
Moo
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The third day of the South Park game is so much better than the first two. It stopped being self-referential and started making jokes. The Nazi zombie aborted fetuses were probably the funniest of those jokes.
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Doomguy
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Moo
Mar 29 2015, 01:56 AM
PS. I'm pretty sure I also wasted level ups on adaptability. In fact it might be an important stat. Adaptability and the question of its usefulness is apparently a 'thing' in the Dark Souls community. I don't know. Whatever the case, I wish you the best of luck.
I decided to level it up almost solely for the poison and curse resistance. Worth it, case closed. Actually having the chance to avoid being instantaneously poisoned or cursed saves me a lot of grief.
Edited by Doomguy, Mar 29 2015, 11:49 AM.
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Mar 26 2015, 11:38 PM
Finished Episode 2 of Life is Strange.

Has the same gameplay structure of the first episode. Small hubs of that allow a fair bit of environment exploration, offering exposition for world and character building. The Twin Peaks + Teen fiction atmosphere is still present and the animation / visual quality is excellent when compared to other episodic adventure games.

The content in the Episode as a whole was abit of a mixed bag, there's a rather lackluster trial and error section that plays with the rewind mechanic and a fetch quest for bottles that seemed to be there to pad the length of the episode out. But the 2nd half of the Episode was really excellent with moments of urgency and the feeling that choices (well, a number of them) actually had impact to the end result. What it did in terms of its core game mechanic was so clever, putting a spin on what you're used to doing when choices present themselves. Interesting to see where it's going, it hit a huge high with just 2 episodes in.

One thing worth nothing: The word "Amazeballs" that dropped early in the episode tops the "Go fuck your selfie" phrase that appeared in the 1st. Dat writing lol.
Did you check out Kate's video?

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Derpstrom
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Finished Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor last night. It was a good game but disappointing. That could be me succumbing to hype though. I didn't know a great deal about the game but I did know it was considered by many to be the best game last year and, in general, was very well received.

There were a few things I took issue with that made me feel this way

1. It was buggy. A large part of the game involves getting orc captains down to a certain percentage of health then performing certain actions (requirements changed about half way through the game but the process was the same). Often I'd use an enemy weakness to spook them which would make them flee. The purpose of this is to make them run away from large groups of orcs so you have the time necessary to perform the appropriate action (rather than just killing them which would mean they come back to life again). All too often I'd spook an Uruk captain, he'd start running and, with him still on screen, I'd get the text "blahblahblah has fled" then immediately the animation for the same guy engaging me would appear. Basically it marked him as fled then respawned him right beside me again with full health and no fear. Very frustrating and happened 4 or 5 times.

2. It was short. I'm sure I played a while but there were only about 10-15 story quests, each of which could be completed in around 10 minutes or so. Twice the game requires you to use it's inbuilt nemesis system to take out all the warchiefs which is enjoyable but felt like a filler designed to show off a mechanic... a bloody good mechanic but it felt like it was something they should have introduced earlier and had us working towards rather than as a "you've finished the SP{ quests for now. Complete all this side stuff before we'll give you the next quest".

3. It mechanics were easily abused / it was too easy. The combat was pretty simple and the only time it became difficult was when you were in a densely populated are a and the swarm you fought kept growing. Worse when there were captains about too as they made it tougher. If things got too tough though all you had to do was run behind a wall and everyone seemed to forget who you were. Very few Uruks clib too so, if that didin't work, just go up a level and out of sight. Captain fights were good as you had to interrogate Uruks to obtain intel and learn their strengths/weaknesses however, in the second half of the game, you gain the ability to make uruks fight for you. So, if you find a particularly tough captain like this arsehole below (who was nowhere near any fire and not scared of fire arrows because he was immune to ranged), you just had to roam around gathering uruks to your cauyse and let them do the fighting.

Just seemed very hand holdey and easily abused... but IO had Bloodborne next on my play pile so I may be unfairly comparing it to soemthing that, IMO, teaches you perfectly.

4. Shared control buttons. This was particularly a nuisance in timed quests and reminded me of Bioshock Infinite. R1 is used to free prisoners, grab Uruks, pick flowers, mount caragors, and so on. There was one particular quest where I failed because the time limit ran out. I'd arrived, killed all the uruks and had about 30 seconds to spare. I had to mount my caragor and pick two herbs before I was able to untie the prisoner... during which the timer ran out and I failed the quest :(

5. Very "British". This isn't a fair criticism of the game but is more a personal thing. I grow weary of games where all the bad guys have a cockney accent/use the appropriate colloquialisms and all the good guys have a "proper" posh accent. I get that';s the norm but it felt out of place in this game. The Uruk's actions/words seemed better suited to a Lock, Sotck and Two Smoking Barrels gangster game than a medievil one.

Anyway. Very enjoyable game but dissapointing at the same time. Probably won't bother playing again. Would be nice to see what they do with the sequel but, judging by the success of this one, I don't hold high hopes that things will be addressed, more that they'll become more "fan appealing"

Also why the fuck was Gollum there? I hate gollum and that character's just annoying and over-used in anything Middle Earth. That';s not a real gripe obviously... I just don't like him.

Is anyone knowledgable about Middle Earth lore? I'd be interested to hear if this is a new story set between the Hobbit and LOTR or whether it was pre-existing.

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Edited by Derpstrom, Mar 29 2015, 01:20 PM.
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jamesh
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Heretix_Aevum
Mar 28 2015, 05:04 PM
jamesh
Mar 27 2015, 09:33 PM
I gave up on Demon Souls close to the start, and haven't given the series another look. It felt like the game was wasting my time with the penalties for dying, so I moved on to something else.

It's cool you're having fun with Bloodborne though.
This happened to me the first time I tried Dark Souls during a Steam free weekend. But then I tried it again after making a new character, and with more patience I was totally taken by it. It's the kind of game you just have to give a chance to break you out of the easy-mode, hand holding, pussification, winning is an eventuality rather than a reward, press x to win, Achievement unlocked: 50g "You pressed a button!", filthy casual slump we've all been in for the entirety of last gen. Once it does, boy is it fucking awesome.

Of course if 3rd person action RPGs aren't your thing, or you don't have the time then fair enough, but if it does interest you as a game outside of it's difficulty then I implore you try it again. It's worth.
I don't really agree with your "easy-mode, hand holding, pussification, winning is an eventuality" vs. hard game comparison.

One hard game I played recently and enjoyed is Trials Evolution. It's quite likely that I'll never be able to complete every track due to the difficulty (at least not without a shitload more practice). That said, I never felt like it was wasting my time like Demon Souls did: if I failed, it took very little time to get back to the obstacle I was having trouble with. Plus, I've always got the challenge of no-faulting a track and the various track specific challenges.

in contrast, it felt like Demon Souls was asking me to redo too much as punishment for mistakes. I also didn't like that they decided to remove the ability to pause the game: it just meant that I'd lose progress in situations where I'd otherwise pause.
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Moo
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I could level with the argument that a pause button should be available because it's inconvenient if the phone rings, but as a game mechanic I think it's excellent because it forces you to strategize on the fly and ratchets up the tension. I think it'd be lame if, for example, you saw a boss telegraph his next attack and you could then pause the game to think about what you're going to do. The thrill of entering a boss fight knowing the tension won't cease makes finally killing it the most rewarding catharsis.

Though if you prefer a cooler, more logical flow to things, I could see why you don't like it.
Edited by Moo, Mar 29 2015, 07:29 PM.
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Doomguy
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I can't speak for Demon Souls but in the case of Dark Souls 1 and 2, it's the fact that you're properly punished and properly rewarded that makes it good, but it's never excessive in either direction. Having to "go back" and repeat content has been a huge turn off for me for a long time. However I never think Dark Souls takes you that far back, and if it does then it means you missed a bonfire. Also, it's not the same to me as having to repeat an area due to the souls currency. If I die with 10k souls somewhere and on my way back to the spot I may amass another 5k, so when I get my souls back I've actually made some effective exp progress rather than simply getting back to where I was up to. I like that this is accompanied by the risk of permanently losing what you had if you don't learn from your previous death. It's an excellent teaching method of the game, but once again it's really never outrageous if it happens because you shouldn't be running around with a shitload of souls in the first place.

The other part of it is, in my experience, you don't die that much. It's relatively regular, sure, but it's hardly constant or anything. It's part of the process of being broken in by the game, once you're accustomed to the game you won't find yourself dying every time or anything. Once you hit your stride (which doesn't take too long, getting a shield and decent weapon is a major part of it) it becomes a reasonable, fair challenge.
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Doomguy
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And yes, I can understand why not being able to pause is a deal-breaker for some folks.
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jamesh
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Moo
Mar 29 2015, 07:21 PM
I could level with the argument that a pause button should be available because it's inconvenient if the phone rings, but as a game mechanic I think it's excellent because it forces you to strategize on the fly and ratchets up the tension. I think it'd be lame if, for example, you saw a boss telegraph his next attack and you could then pause the game to think about what you're going to do. The thrill of entering a boss fight knowing the tension won't cease makes finally killing it the most rewarding catharsis.

Though if you prefer a cooler, more logical flow to things, I could see why you don't like it.
I guess the obvious question then is this: would you get the same thrill and reward if you'd simply decided to face the boss without pausing and just take whatever the game threw at you? What if the game gave you some added reward for successfully completing the battle without pausing?

Surely you've added "house rules" to games in the past in order to make them more interesting/engaging. Does the game really have to be obnoxious in order to be satisfying?
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Moo
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Of course I wouldn't get the same thrill from that. The boss fights are designed with the non-pausing in mind. They build tension to a fever pitch and don't let up until you've succeeded or died. I simply can't think of anything more cathartic in gaming than defeating a Souls boss. I disagree that it's obnoxious. It's a combat-heavy action adventure that favours quick thinking over strategy, and I think it's an aesthetic choice, because if you were allowed to pause and think the fights would lose some of their lustre. Winning wouldn't feel as rewarding.
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Doomguy
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There's also the more pressing issue that it's a multiplayer game.
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Moo
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Of course the game actually does involve a lot of strategizing. You return to a fight with a battle plan and see how it unfolds. If you fail you try to do it better or revise your tactics. I enjoy trying to adapt to all the shit the bosses pull.
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Moo
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Heretix_Aevum
Mar 29 2015, 11:40 PM
There's also the more pressing issue that it's a multiplayer game.
Making pausing available when you're not multiplaying would be a simple fix in that regard though. I believe there's more to the non-pausing than that.
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jamesh
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Moo
Mar 29 2015, 11:38 PM
Of course I wouldn't get the same thrill from that. The boss fights are designed with the non-pausing in mind. They build tension to a fever pitch and don't let up until you've succeeded or died. I simply can't think of anything more cathartic in gaming than defeating a Souls boss. I disagree that it's obnoxious. It's a combat-heavy action adventure that favours quick thinking over strategy, and I think it's an aesthetic choice, because if you were allowed to pause and think the fights would lose some of their lustre. Winning wouldn't feel as rewarding.
So you're saying that if the game was identical in every respect apart from the pause function, and you had set yourself the challenge of completing a battle without pausing that it wouldn't be the same???
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Moo
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It wouldn't, because what you'd be doing wouldn't be an authentic part of the game. It wouldn't feel the same. There's an emotional difference between beating the challenges the game sets out and beating challenges you set for yourself arbitrarily. Also, it's fun after playing to read about all the different strategies people came up with, so obviously I couldn't relate to them if I was setting my own rules.
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