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glad she is dead posted:I've always been partial to the train in Fallout 3 secretly being the hat of a hidden NPC. this is my favorite 
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Apr 12, 2018 14:23
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I don't know why you all keep saying that you Mind Trick Z into killing Mission, I distinctly remember just straight up telling him he owed me a Life Debt, so it was me or Mission. He was crying and saying how sorry he was as he strangled her to death, it was awesome. edit: Welp, I was wrong. To be fair, KotoR was what, 15 years ago, easily? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojFXEU1NSjQ&t=8s Mr. Bad Guy has a new favorite as of 15:00 on Apr 12, 2018 |
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Apr 12, 2018 14:55
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Late to the party, but I think good or evil choices in video games work depending on the type of game and protagonist in it. Blank slate games tend toward saint/neutral/baby killer choices because they need to propose extremes in order to make the choice feel meaningful. This tends to make those games seem more cartoonish and put a little distance between the player and the character. This can work well if it's intentional (Divinity: Original Sin 2 is already cartoonish, and the camera is far enough away from the characters, to make those choices feel less personal), or in games with good and evil baked into the established setting (KOTOR), but for more grounded, grittier, or more personal games, it can rattle the player's connection to the character (FO3). Using an established protagonist means that the choices can become more personal, keeping true to the character, rather than "lol gently caress your missing child I'm gonna feed it to my dog." This tends toward a less overt morality system, like picking between the cynical hero or the rear end in a top hat options in Witcher 3 or D:HR, rather than the Bethesda Fallouts' ding of sainthood and chord of doom system. This keeps the player more engaged with the character, at the expense of the player playing their own character. This is why I think the ME games did moral choices mostly right. All moral choice actions in those games made sense for Shepard as a character, while keeping the character of Shepard a blank enough slate for the player to customize him or her to the player's choosing. Using those choices to power up your good vs. evil meter wasn't handled well, prioritizing staying paragon or renegade throughout the game rather than choosing what makes the most sense for the character at the time, but at least those choices made sense for the character. The best game for mechanically rewarding choices, good or evil (although the choices are less "evil" and more "rear end in a top hat), is still Alpha Protocol. For the two people reading this thread who haven't played it, almost every meaningful choice in the game gives your character a small bonus, with different decisions on the same choice giving different bonuses. I'd kill for an open world sci-fi or fantasy game with the same choice and dialog systems as Alpha Protocol, but I doubt that will ever happen.
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Apr 12, 2018 14:57
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Alpha Protocol benefits from being 10 hours instead of 100 hours like Witcher 3, as it's easier to comprehend the reactivity and to replay the entire game to witness other outcomes. And having a strict hub-mission format instead of an open-world helps streamline events. It would also be a good idea for an Alpha Protocol-style game to have an achievement meta-game which encourages you to get into cool situations like: betraying everybody, killing every named character, never speaking at all, romancing everyone, being a total miser, being a total ghost. AND Alpha Protocol beats New Deus Ex by having a loving a record screen, so your eye doesn't twitch when you realise you didn't get the No-Alarm trophy after a 30-hour playthrough.
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Apr 12, 2018 15:09
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TontoCorazon posted:There's a mission in far cry 5 that has you preparing bull testicles in different ways for a festival and one of the ways is you have to kill a bull mid coitus. The second you let the cows onto the bullpen "sexual healing" starts playing. You’re forgetting that in saints row 4 when you and gat get together for the first time to kill some mascots it starts playing The Boys Are Back In Town by Thin Lizzie. It’s fantastic  The music they made for the 2D platformer part is fantastic as well, I would listen to it outside the game but I’m too lazy to look for/ steal them.
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Apr 12, 2018 15:52
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Inspector Gesicht posted:Alpha Protocol benefits from being 10 hours instead of 100 hours like Witcher 3, as it's easier to comprehend the reactivity and to replay the entire game to witness other outcomes. And having a strict hub-mission format instead of an open-world helps streamline events. It would also be a good idea for an Alpha Protocol-style game to have an achievement meta-game which encourages you to get into cool situations like: betraying everybody, killing every named character, never speaking at all, romancing everyone, being a total miser, being a total ghost. It also has the best “rear end in a top hat meter” on the record screen. Good ol’ “Orphans Created”. That was genius. It added more or less orphans depending on who you killed. A guy in the Middle East would result in more orphans than a CIA agent and whatnot. It was pretty well-done.
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Apr 12, 2018 17:00
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I always like the line item in Prototype mission reports about how many billions of dollars the military spent failing to stop you.
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Apr 12, 2018 17:12
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One of the other great music cues in Saints Row the Third that I recall others saying changed the choice they were about to make was Holding Out For A Hero near the end of the game.
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Apr 12, 2018 17:44
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More game-adjacent but I got a new subscriber a few days ago and every few hours I get a comment from them as they go through my videos reacting to the games. 
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Apr 12, 2018 18:00
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Skyrim VR has a lot of neat little touches, but I switched to the Move controllers yesterday to tool around with them a bit. Dual casting magic was fun, being able to harvest stuff absentmindedly as I walk past it is really handy, and melee combat feels kind of silly but it’s a lot of fun. That’s not what I’m posting about though. I’m posting about using a bow with the PS Move controllers. It’s straight up completely broken, and it’s wonderful. Bows are unique in how they control because they actually make you hold the arrow in one hand, draw it back, and release to fire. With a controller, bows are really useful from stealth, but not the fastest attack around. With the Move, there’s no stamina bar and you can fire as fast as you can physically do the motions. Enemies turn into pincushions before they even realize you started firing. It’s so much fun.
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Apr 12, 2018 18:09
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Inspector Gesicht posted:It would also be a good idea for an Alpha Protocol-style game to have an achievement meta-game which encourages you to get into cool situations like: betraying everybody, killing every named character, never speaking at all, romancing everyone, being a total miser, being a total ghost It's seriously a shame that Alpha Protocol doesn't have achievements on Steam when even KotOR2 does.
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Apr 12, 2018 18:20
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Guy Mann posted:It's seriously a shame that Alpha Protocol doesn't have achievements on Steam when even KotOR2 does. Especially because the console versions have them, so it’s not like the framework isn’t already completed.
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Apr 12, 2018 18:30
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OK, my real copy of Mad Maestro arrived and I'm so happy that it works well. Got a D on the first song, but I beat it, and towards the end of it I'd started getting mostly angels due to playing well. Game good, I'm happy.  I also love that the first song is actually fsairly tricky due to being pretty fast - It just throws you into the deep end.
BioEnchanted has a new favorite as of 18:40 on Apr 12, 2018 |
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Apr 12, 2018 18:36
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Ugly In The Morning posted:It also has the best “rear end in a top hat meter” on the record screen. Good ol’ “Orphans Created”. That was genius. It added more or less orphans depending on who you killed. A guy in the Middle East would result in more orphans than a CIA agent and whatnot. It was pretty well-done. And any kills in China only added 1.
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Apr 12, 2018 18:38
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Barudak posted:I like games where when you select “Oh no need for payment” the NPCs actually stiff you instead of that being a hidden option for some magical super trinket. I love that in the Witcher games, if you refuse payment from people, you get nothing because you're playing the game/doing your place in society as a witcher wrong.
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Apr 12, 2018 18:59
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Twitch posted:I love that in the Witcher games, if you refuse payment from people, you get nothing because you're playing the game/doing your place in society as a witcher wrong. If you do this then the quest giver responds with, "Wait, it was just a drake? What the gently caress am I paying you for then?" and you only get half the normal reward.
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Apr 12, 2018 19:08
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The Witcher 3 has one of the better morality-system in that there isn't one. You make a choice during a quest and either minutes or hours later you get an outcome. The only part where you need to score points is your choices with Ciri in the endgame.
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Apr 12, 2018 19:42
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BioEnchanted posted:More game-adjacent but I got a new subscriber a few days ago and every few hours I get a comment from them as they go through my videos reacting to the games. Haha same here! He's been going through the videos of me playing dark souls for the first time. What's your YouTube channel?
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Apr 12, 2018 19:45
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Son of Thunderbeast posted:Haha same here! He's been going through the videos of me playing dark souls for the first time. What's your YouTube channel? RPGLover87. Made it before my current Handle was A Thing.
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Apr 12, 2018 19:47
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Maybe a big thing but I really like that in the Walking Dead games it’s a super diverse cast, the main character is a mixed girl, there’s a redneck, multiple black people, Asian people, Hispanic people, some Russian people (who are of course evil  ) etc. Most games are like, White Male, maybe a token black dude. This isn’t counting games where you get to create your own character or ones with animals or some poo poo (like elder scrolls). In a way it’s kind of in your face more than other games with diversity (like saints row even from the old rear end first one) I feel. Like it’s saying, “hey the planet is diverse so we’re going to show it.” Not that they point it out but you spend a lot of time with these people so it’s really noticeable. I probably sound stupid here, sorry if I do. BUT ALSO they’re not stereotypes like in other games; ie in SR1 the big black guy was a record company executive that wore all gold, or Franklin living in tha hood. He could have lived in some dump in a hipster neighborhood, wouldn’t change much.
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Apr 12, 2018 20:54
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Minor one that I haven't seen mentioned yet, but in Planescape: Torment you can introduce yourself to multiple NPCs as "Adahn" or ask about Adahn throughout the game, and it seemingly doesn't do anything but make you slightly more chaotic. Spoiler for a super old game Except at the end of the game, if you told enough people about Adahn then he would actually appear, brought to existence by people believing there is a guy named Adahn. He doesn't know anything about how he got there but is relived that you found him since he is your friend. You can get some pretty sweet items from him by playing along but if you tell him you don't think he exists, he disappears from existence. I'm finishing up another playthrough now and I love all the little plot threads like that Aphrodite posted:And any kills in China only added 1.  actually, despite what the PRC and KMT say, Taiwan isnt part of China.
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Apr 13, 2018 02:24
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Planescape: Torment seems like the most amazing game I’ll never have the time or patience to play.
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Apr 13, 2018 02:37
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moosecow333 posted:Planescape: Torment seems like the most amazing game I’ll never have the time or patience to play. It's basically a visual novel, with walking-sim elements, crammed into a DnD-style game engine. The big irony of Planescape as a setting is that it's created by taking all DnD's planar weirdness with angels and demons and demiplanes and seeing where that goes, and it turns out that DnD as a system is wholly unsuited to telling that kind of story about belief and philosophy. Like you have a faction dedicated to law and justice and order and the bonus you get for joining them is "+4 against illusions" and that sort of thing. There's a pretty good indie tabletop RPG now that does try to do 'Planescape with the serial numbers filed off', called Sig. bewilderment has a new favorite as of 02:51 on Apr 13, 2018 |
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Apr 13, 2018 02:48
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bewilderment posted:It's basically a visual novel, with walking-sim elements That seems like a needlessly convoluted way to say "adventure game".
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Apr 13, 2018 03:12
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ImpAtom posted:The best morality system in a video game is in Valkyrie Profile: Convenant of the Plume. Reminds me a bit of Tactics Ogre. Which is still one of the only games where I've ever put down, and was like "did I make the right choice?" The game likes to put you in a rock and a hard place (like aligning with a enemy to defeat another enemy, or not and risk upsetting people who you rather like). And to me it's what I always wanted a role playing game to be. The best part is their "morality" system is subjective. It goes by lawful, neutral, and chaotic. But lawful doesn't mean good, it means you obey the government's orders. Chaotic doesn't mean bad it just means you have no alliance to any government. It's an rpg so it is really dense in texts (especially at the beginning unfortunately) but man I enjoyed it.
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Apr 13, 2018 03:16
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Don Gato posted:Minor one that I haven't seen mentioned yet, but in Planescape: Torment you can introduce yourself to multiple NPCs as "Adahn" or ask about Adahn throughout the game, and it seemingly doesn't do anything but make you slightly more chaotic. The Power of Belief is an actual thing in that universe. It's been years since I played it, but I remember the main city where you play spins around depending on the Alignment of its citizens, and the plan of one of the antagonists is to make a considerable segment of the population behave badly enough so their bit of land gets shifted to where the demons reside and get slaughtered by them. There's also a sidequest where someone asks you to believe a tree can be healthy. You ask each of your party members to wish the tree to grow stronger but if you ask the pyromaniac(Who's constantly on fire) he'll burn the tree down instead. It's a good game. edit: Hell, I think that if you play your cards right you can (Ending spoilers) have such a strong power of belief that you can will the last boss out of existence without putting up a fight.. Might be missing a couple of details, like I said, it's been years. Samuringa has a new favorite as of 03:32 on Apr 13, 2018 |
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Apr 13, 2018 03:29
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moosecow333 posted:Planescape: Torment seems like the most amazing game I’ll never have the time or patience to play. It's definitely an odd duck in that it's a narrative-driven game but huge swaths of the narrative are based on you making counter-intuitive character building decisions with how you distribute your stats. Like the main character is a hulking shirtless warrior dude but Wisdom and Intelligence are what control your ability to recall past memories and unlock dialogue options, so if you do what common sense and genre savviness would suggest and focus on making your big strong warrior guy bigger and stronger then you're going to have a bad time. And if you make the right decisions then you're stuck with a bunch of stats that are of no use to you in combat until later in the game when you unlock the ability to change your class from warrior to mage. Honestly if you play on Easy and use a character building guide them it's pretty easy to just play through the actual game parts as a fairly mindless hack-and-slash and if worst comes to worst you can just plain cheat. If you're fine with the sheer amount of reading you have to deal with and some occasional old-school jank then the actual narrative parts are still really good even if you don't know anything about D&D. One design decision I like is that as part of their conspicuous decision to avoid genre cliches there isn't a single sword you can equip in the entire game. There's everything from crowbars to daggers to your own severed arm to fake teeth to a blade made from pure willpower but no swords. Same with armor, your main dude runs around unarmored and instead equips different tattoos for protection.
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Apr 13, 2018 03:33
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Samuringa posted:edit: Hell, I think that if you play your cards right you can (Ending spoilers) have such a strong power of belief that you can will the last boss out of existence without putting up a fight.. Might be missing a couple of details, like I said, it's been years. You basically pull this, if I remember correctly. Douglas Adams posted:“Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.
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Apr 13, 2018 03:38
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Guy Mann posted:
Incorrect, there is in fact a single sword in the entire game, a weapon wielded by an angel that you must be Lawful Good to wield. Edit: Unless that's the willpower blade? It's been quite a while since I played it.
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Apr 13, 2018 04:03
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Guy Mann posted:It's definitely an odd duck in that it's a narrative-driven game but huge swaths of the narrative are based on you making counter-intuitive character building decisions with how you distribute your stats. Like the main character is a hulking shirtless warrior dude but Wisdom and Intelligence are what control your ability to recall past memories and unlock dialogue options, so if you do what common sense and genre savviness would suggest and focus on making your big strong warrior guy bigger and stronger then you're going to have a bad time. And if you make the right decisions then you're stuck with a bunch of stats that are of no use to you in combat until later in the game when you unlock the ability to change your class from warrior to mage. All you gotta do is accept the game is a Visual Novel, pump your stat points into Int and Wis at the start screen and talk your way out of everything. Combat is meaningless as you can avoid 99% of it, and blast your way through the rest with some spells. And the best part, dying doesn't matter as you're literally immortal.
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Apr 13, 2018 05:07
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Nude posted:Reminds me a bit of Tactics Ogre. Which is still one of the only games where I've ever put down, and was like "did I make the right choice?" The game likes to put you in a rock and a hard place (like aligning with a enemy to defeat another enemy, or not and risk upsetting people who you rather like). And to me it's what I always wanted a role playing game to be. The best part is their "morality" system is subjective. It goes by lawful, neutral, and chaotic. But lawful doesn't mean good, it means you obey the government's orders. Chaotic doesn't mean bad it just means you have no alliance to any government. It's an rpg so it is really dense in texts (especially at the beginning unfortunately) but man I enjoyed it. Surely I'm not the only person who had to stop and have a good think about the big Geth choice in Mass Effect 2?
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Apr 13, 2018 06:37
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My favourite "small thing" about Planescape: Torment is exactly that you can avoid every fight in the game except like three. I usually get annoyed at the Infinity Engine games being way too close to the tabletop games and ending up random and terribly balanced for it, so I end up quickloading constantly in early game and being too tired of it to actually reach the mid-game. Planescape goes around that by just not having you fight. And your companions are badass enough to handle most threats once you talk them through their personal problems with your mammoth INT to make them stronger. You can also become a wizard to make use of that INT in combat! An actual small thing: your first companion is a floating skull, classed as a warrior. He's the best tank you could hope for, because he can swear at your enemies to attract their attention and he's really hard to actually hit because he's a floating skull! 
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Apr 13, 2018 06:48
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John Murdoch posted:Surely I'm not the only person who had to stop and have a good think about the big Geth choice in Mass Effect 2? I'm from Eden Prime and I say kill them all!
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Apr 13, 2018 06:50
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oldpainless posted:I'm from Eden Prime and I say kill them all! But do they have any less right to life than we do? Just because the timescale of evolution was different doesn't mean they experience emotions any differently.
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Apr 13, 2018 06:52
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Guy Mann posted:It's definitely an odd duck in that it's a narrative-driven game but huge swaths of the narrative are based on you making counter-intuitive character building decisions with how you distribute your stats. Like the main character is a hulking shirtless warrior dude but Wisdom and Intelligence are what control your ability to recall past memories and unlock dialogue options, so if you do what common sense and genre savviness would suggest and focus on making your big strong warrior guy bigger and stronger then you're going to have a bad time. And if you make the right decisions then you're stuck with a bunch of stats that are of no use to you in combat until later in the game when you unlock the ability to change your class from warrior to mage.
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Apr 13, 2018 07:16
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Aithon posted:My favourite "small thing" about Planescape: Torment is exactly that you can avoid every fight in the game except like three. I usually get annoyed at the Infinity Engine games being way too close to the tabletop games and ending up random and terribly balanced for it, so I end up quickloading constantly in early game and being too tired of it to actually reach the mid-game. Planescape goes around that by just not having you fight. And your companions are badass enough to handle most threats once you talk them through their personal problems with your mammoth INT to make them stronger. You can also become a wizard to make use of that INT in combat! this is like the description of like the worst loving game EDIT: of D&D
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Apr 13, 2018 08:28
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Elfgames posted:this is like the description of like the worst loving game If some enterprising author were to write a novel of the story where The Nameless One makes all the "evil" choices, I would buy the most expensive version. No other game has come close to making me feel like an irredeemable rear end in a top hat. I've heard Tyranny comes close but I think in that game you're supposed to be a dick the whole time. That kinda takes away the sting.
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Apr 13, 2018 09:03
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Samuringa posted:All you gotta do is accept the game is a Visual Novel, pump your stat points into Int and Wis at the start screen and talk your way out of everything. Combat is meaningless as you can avoid 99% of it, and blast your way through the rest with some spells. And the best part, dying doesn't matter as you're literally immortal. This is definitely just a pet peeve of mine, but a game's focus being on story and dialogue doesn't make it a visual novel, it's simply a story-heavy game. Even with all combat removed PS:T would still be a game you play rather than a novel you read after all, and hardly the first one of its kind.
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Apr 13, 2018 10:02
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oldpainless posted:I'm from Eden Prime and I say kill them all!
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Apr 13, 2018 12:18
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Inzombiac posted:If some enterprising author were to write a novel of the story where The Nameless One makes all the "evil" choices, I would buy the most expensive version. You feel like an irredeemable monster in Tyranny, but in a good way. I played my character as a cold, imposing, ruthless Darth Vader style villain and it was the most fun I’ve ever had being bad in a game. I guess you can play it as a good guy and join the rebels but like... why do that when you could just play literally any other game. There is a part where you can kill a baby, like, personally with your own two hands which was a bridge too far even for me, but I made my character such a Brain Genius that she knew some obscure ancient law to resolve that issue peacefully off the top of her head without having to find it in a library I hadn’t been to yet, which was neat.
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Apr 13, 2018 12:40
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