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What have you finished and what did you think (WHYFAWDYT) thread
Topic Started: Dec 13 2013, 12:06 PM (33,528 Views)
nuttz
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Chickan
Mar 29 2015, 01:19 PM
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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It's set before LotR when Sauron first rises back to power. The whole Celebrimbor story is taken from the appendices of LotR (or the Silmarillion, don't remember which), but pretty much everything else is new (although based on the pre-existing lore of Middle Earth).
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Derpstrom
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Demon Souls was a different beast to Dark Souls. IMO Dark Souls has a better design that assists the player better than Demon Souls did. Bloodborne takes it an extra level and makes the world easier to traverse without sacrificing difficulty.

Couple of things I think From do poorly with this series.

1. Tutorials. I get that learning is by doing but it would be really nice to have a little tutorial to tell you how to do the basics like equipping armour, combat, jumping, proper way to combat, etc. Dark Souls 2 had a tutorial of sorts in Things Betweixt but I think all games would benefit from a tutorial you could select at the menu that puts you in a fight and pauses whilst showing you what to do.

2. Menus. The menus are still horrible. I actually had to google how to equip a weapon when I started Bloodborne yesterday. It's not done from inventory and, when you know where and how, it's not so bad... but you have to know when and how first and it doesn't explain that at all.

Actually I think that's about it. Dark Souls and Bloodborne have a considerably better design with regards to waypointing before boss fights. Bloodborne reminds me of Demon Souls a little in that, at the first lantern, there's a gate locked from the other side. After you complete the first section you can open this gate before fighting the first boss. This creates a nice shortcut for when you die. Not as easy as the Dark Souls bonfire before the boss fight system but not as bad as the Demon Souls method where shortcuts made level traversal easier but there were still bosses that required a decent chunk of level navigation before encountering.
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Moo
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I think Bloodborne has a tutorial of sorts. It's just taught through the early gameplay by making you adapt to difficult situations. I'd choose that kind of inference-based learning over a primer anytime, as long as it's done with as much care as it is in the Souls series. If Bloodborne had given a lengthy explanation of what parrying is and how it works, then suddenly an early boss fight would become an exercise in repeating what the game has told you to do instead of a puzzle in itself to be overcome through observation and experimentation. The latter is immensely rewarding.
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Patto
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Chickan
Mar 30 2015, 09:04 AM
2. Menus. The menus are still horrible. I actually had to google how to equip a weapon when I started Bloodborne yesterday. It's not done from inventory and, when you know where and how, it's not so bad... but you have to know when and how first and it doesn't explain that at all.
You is dumb.

But seriously, if you haven't play a souls game it would be confusing as you can't equip anything through the actual inventory menu
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Derpstrom
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Moo
Mar 30 2015, 11:06 AM
I think Bloodborne has a tutorial of sorts. It's just taught through the early gameplay by making you adapt to difficult situations. I'd choose that kind of inference-based learning over a primer anytime, as long as it's done with as much care as it is in the Souls series. If Bloodborne had given a lengthy explanation of what parrying is and how it works, then suddenly an early boss fight would become an exercise in repeating what the game has told you to do instead of a puzzle in itself to be overcome through observation and experimentation. The latter is immensely rewarding.
I just think it works towards making the game less accessible for newcomers. It's a tough enough game as it is without skimping on explaining the basics (brief text things on the ground don't count). It makes sense for Souls players but I'd imagine it would be very offputting for the majority of new ones
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Moo
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I will say against Bloodborne that it's ludicrous that health potions don't regenerate after you die. I think the idea behind it is to reward better players who will have more blood echoes (in-game currency) leftover to level up while less adept players will have to spend some of the BEs on more health potions. Unfortunately it can lead to forced grinding for BEs when a boss kills you too many times. This effected me a lot at the start of the game and now it is again towards the end. With the current boss, I am generally running out of health potions after every 4th attempt, so I have to go on a dumb hunt for more BEs.

This is a punishment I'm completely against.
Edited by Moo, Mar 30 2015, 05:42 PM.
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Moo
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Moo
Mar 29 2015, 02:39 AM
Dark Souls is about the inevitability of death. Bloodborne is about the existential weight of that inevitability.
I know this post went by quietly without a response, but I'm too embarrassed by it and just want to make clear for my own sake that I was drunk and don't actually think these things. There is an air of melancholy hanging over Dark Souls though (the final boss fight in this respect is pure art), while Bloodborne's atmosphere is more malevolent and brutal.

Also, as much as I love Bloodborne, its debt to Resident Evil 4's villagers is immense. The enemy townsfolk are almost exactly the same. They're basically just larger and speak English instead of Spanish.
Edited by Moo, Mar 30 2015, 11:02 PM.
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jamesh
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Moo
Mar 30 2015, 03:06 AM
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.
Alright, rather than a "house rule" how about as an optional objective? Given the number of websites dedicated to helping people unlock trophies and achievements in games, and the popularity of in-game "skill point" systems, I find it hard to believe that you couldn't find other people who would want to share strategies. All it would require is for the game to give you a silly hat for beating a boss without pausing, or similar.

I guess I'm arguing that perhaps the game is good despite the obnoxious design decisions rather than because of them.
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Moo
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I don't care about trophies and achievements. I consider the trophy notification an annoyance every time it shows up. There's more to defeating a Souls boss than simply overcoming a difficult objective. It relates to the idea that gameplay and aesthetics intertwine and bounce off each other. The Souls games know how goddamn hard their fights are and so they conclude each fight with a bombastic display that heralds your success and feeds your sense of accomplishment, and this is a thousand times better than some vapid Dorito trophy notification or silly hat. The fact that you can't pause -- which is not the same experience as choosing not to pause or chasing some non-pausing achievement -- contributes to this because it increases the tension and it's an authentic part of the fight ("authenticity" is a whole can of worms that's too much to go into, suffice to say that it's very important in this case). The game knows you can't pause and that you have been scared as shit CONSTANTLY during the whole fight and it responds to this, when you win, with a huge celebration. So no, getting rid of pausing isn't obnoxious but one of the small but key pieces of the series' design. It feeds the catharsis of beating a boss, which is literally the best experience the series offers, the biggest reason for its passionate fanbase.

You could think of it in the sense of a footy match. You go in with a strategy but once you're in there you can't stop the game to revise things if it's not going your way. You have to think on your feet. The Souls series simply chooses that paradigm. It's not obnoxious, but just different from the norm. It's like chess with a timer.

I dunno. You're talking very logically about something that's hard to describe in a logical sense. I bet you'd change your tune if you tried Dark Souls or Bloodborne or just had more patience with Demon's Souls. Admittedly I haven't played Demon's Souls.

Sorry if I sound overly aggressive but it's Souls the games of our times I'm defending here.
Edited by Moo, Mar 31 2015, 05:04 AM.
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Moo
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On the subject, when the shit is PS4 gonna release Demon's Souls and MGS4? And God of War 3? I want to play these games!
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Derpstrom
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I would be very interested to hear your thoughts on Demon Souls. I can't stand it now, going back, but I really enjoyed it to a point the first time I played.
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After enjoying the first two levels, Battlefield Hardline turns to shit fairly quickly. Stupid beyond belief with such broken ideas.
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jamesh
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Jingles
Apr 4 2015, 03:21 PM
After enjoying the first two levels, Battlefield Hardline turns to shit fairly quickly. Stupid beyond belief with such broken ideas.
What did you expect? Before release they pretty much said that they self- censored any ideas that might make the player uncomfortable about being a cop who murders people (e.g. humanising any of the enemies).

They tied their own hands in the main aspect that could differentiate their game from any previous ones in the series.
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Red Panda
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It's a modern Battlefield game. Made by the people that made Dead Space titles. What did you expect from the campaign other than garbage?
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Doomguy
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>Buying MMFPS games
Fuck_Giver.exe has stopped working!
Does it matter how I write the truth?
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