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I'm another one of those strange people who doesn't seem to mind Oblivion's setting. I'm not really all that big into fantasy (I know, I know, bear with me), and while I know the European parallel Tolkien-inspired stuff wears thin on a lot of people, it feels a little more comfortable to me. Skingrad in particular is how I've pictured some European towns at various times, the style of the villages can still be felt in some of the more rural English areas I know well, and walking through the expanses is like a more imaginative take on walks I've actually taken. Skyrim has some similar joys for me (The Reach in particular feels Welsh, and I know I'm not the first to think that). I wonder just how much of this is dependent on me being a European. Morrowind's setting is like a more potent dream in some of its extreme fantasy elements (like the Telvanni wizards living in giant mushrooms), and that's great. The problem for me is - and this is largely down to me not having a computer with which to mod the game and boost the graphics - much of its landscape feels really dull. I've probably mentioned it before (in this very thread even), but Azura's Coast and Sheogorad are the worst offenders for me. Of course, this is also due to the age of the game, but I came to after Oblivion and Skyrim and there's nothing I can do about that! I agree with the folks posting that Oblivion has better quests - and Morrowind has better characters - than Skyrim. They're still not great for the most part, mind. I've read someone on here, in a derogatory way, referring to the Elder Scrolls as "armchair games" before... to an extent I can see that approach, I don't necessarily play them for the writing but to pass time by going out into a certain world and doing this and that. The only thing I can add to what's already been said about Oblivion guild quests versus Skyrim guild quests is that Oblivion's Thieves' Guild has stealing as a part of the story, and said story is pretty coherent too. Skyrim's Thieves' Guild quests... well, the main ones don't feel like they were designed for thieves at all.
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Aug 6, 2014 22:06
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Celery Face posted:I love Oblivion, I get nostalgic for it but it's got a lot of flaws. The dungeons are insanely boring (never even bothered with them unless if it was for a quest), the faces are hideous, there was a glitch in my game that prevented me from getting the Anvil mansion, NPCs would get killed out in the wild for no reason, there weren't enough voice actors and magic is just terrible. People complained about different characters in Skyrim having the same voices but it was a hell of a lot better than Oblivion having like 8. In a game with hundreds of NPCs, of course there's going to be identical voices. A big thing with dungeons I'd say Skyrim has over Oblivion and Morrowind is that a good number of dungeons have their own stories to live out. They're still repetitive (probably not quite as much as Oblivion's), but a little plot can distract you from that. There is one dungeon I can think of in Oblivion that's set aside like this, and not only is it massively out the way, but the boss (and therefore climax of the story) doesn't spawn until you reach a higher level... and if you go there too early, it apparently never spawns! As for Oblivion's faces and voice acting, I just have to post this video. I might have posted it before but it's still a classic.
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Aug 7, 2014 07:10
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Papers, Please is a fun little game, and my purchase was actually inspired by comments made in the "good things in games" sister thread. I've been passing the time playing "endless mode", which is exactly what you'd think it to be, but it doesn't seem to save your high score if you then quit the game straight out when you're done. I want my place on the leaderboard, darn it!
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Aug 10, 2014 12:51
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I think most of these are legitimate criticisms of Grand Theft Auto, but I don't necessarily agree that something with a big budget can't be satire. I certainly don't agree that non-Americans can't competently write about the flaws in the American Dream, especially when - as they are Brits in this cases - the UK has a pretty serious case of "51st state stigma". Not that this angle is ever really used in GTA, perhaps barring a throwaway line in IV about rich Brits buying luxury houses in Eastern Europe which they then never use. I want to see a GTA-styled game set in today's London... Totally agree that most of GTA's "witty observations" at this point are really bad though.
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Aug 15, 2014 07:08
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grittyreboot posted:Rockstar also doesn't understand "show, don't tell." Really, Niko? the war changed you? Maybe you could show that instead of just announcing it to whomever you're talking to. I feel like I have a lot of patience, because I maintain that the showing is almost there. It has problems coming out though, firstly in characters not drawing it out adequately, and secondly in the nature of the game itself. Niko is a lunatic. He's an extreme sadomasochist. There's almost something clever in it all, because for all of his dwelling on the horrors of the war, he actually can't help but kill people because a part of him loves doing it (which he constantly disguises as "just being good at it"). Only Roman consistently brings this up, but the dynamic between the two leans heavily in Niko's favour; Roman, for all of his isolated touching, "serious" moments, is a bit of a buffoon. In story moments, it's simply not shown enough as you say. Niko's psychotic screaming of "I'll rip your loving heart out!" during any number of mindless shoot-outs should be at least a bit disturbing, but nobody in-game really reacts to it. The player does, and that leads to the second point... The second point is just one of the big contradictions GTA has to live with. I think they can ask some interesting questions and provide some adequate drama on the back of silly, racy jokes, but it gets harder to sustain the above narrative of Niko when one of the big appeals of the game is the ability to mercilessly kill populations of no-name, no-character computer people. Gamers themselves are complicit in this, as it seems like the big defence of the series whenever a political opponent comes along is that it allows them to "let off steam". It puts whatever point Rockstar are trying to make (and they're not very stable writers to begin with) in jeopardy.
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Aug 15, 2014 15:31
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It's not quite got the post-apocalyptic thing, but there's a fun Vegas rendition in San Andreas if that helps! I know a lot of folks like San Andreas; I do too (well, except those mountain bike races). I still feel like the final act is weak though, thick as it is with mixed ideas and messages. CJ can never leave the Grove spiritually, that's been established, but in a more pleasurable twist on the crime fiction formula, he does manage to make his fortune elsewhere without repercussions. Sweet might have a point (in terms of the subculture) if CJ really did turn his back again and spurned everything that "made him", but his fortune was made entirely through crime and he even gets his hands on Ryder partway through his adventure. There's some element of coming through for your friends and community, like helping Big Bear get off the crack, and of fighting the crooked police forces... but these aren't really given much immediacy, the rationale for CJ returning to the hood is "just because". In one way it almost feels like a dangerously simplistic hood story (written and designed by white Brits who, as related in the Kushner book, were terrified of scouting real-life South LA). You're also thrown back into the monotonous gang wars feature. In the end you will discover that there's nothing more hood than standing at a petrol station, hoping Ballas spawn in the distance so you can snipe them.
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Aug 16, 2014 11:06
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Byzantine posted:Yeah, but none of that helped Grove Street. CJ's been off gallivanting through the state making himself rich and powerful while his home and gang goes to poo poo. True, though you'd think getting Ryder and Pulaski would be veering in this direction. I think the whole situation just strikes me as weird. Grove Street is a horrible place, that's why gangs of competing interests spring up around the area, giving their members just a little bit of purpose. CJ ascends in what's really the only feasible way, since East Los Santos is governed by crack dealers and corrupt cops (the story is forced to conclude on a more positive note here, but it's hard to see if anything really changes). Sweet has some delicate moments realising all of this when he sees their house getting robbed and when he almost succumbs to the temptation of crack, but otherwise the romance of the hood is played fairly straight. The parting line seems to be that Grove Street - where these characters will apparently live and die forever - isn't that bad after all... despite all the evidence to the contrary, all the bad memories and dead bodies it conjures. On the other hand, you can get a fighter jet to spawn on the roof of Mrs Johnson's house. Small victories.
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Aug 16, 2014 22:45
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I'm sure everything there is to be said about Dead Rising has been many, many times over. I've still tried to go back to it again though, after having recently enjoyed an LP of it. I just forgot how ruthless it is! I don't mind the cheesy story and acting, but I kind of just want Dawn of the Dead: The Game (being a big fan of the original movie despite its ham-fisted elements). It has a ton of neat and fun ideas in this respect, but it's hampered by a bizarre save/life system and the notoriously bad survivor AI ("Frank! FRANK!!!"). I remembered after playing yesterday that it can be helpful to give all your survivors guns, so they don't mindlessly charge into crowds of zombies, so I might try that later... or I might just plough through zombies in the underground tunnels until Frank becomes marginally useful! It feels particularly rough that the first real survivors you encounter are in the narrow Al Fresca Plaza, which is almost always brimming with zombies. To make matters worse, you're likely to get to them just as HE AIN'T MY BOY BUT THE BROTHER IS HEAVY starts appearing in the central park area. I'm sure there are harder games, but I'm just not that hardcore, man. 
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Aug 19, 2014 12:52
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Lord Lambeth posted:Maybe try picking up Dead Rising 2: OTR? The AI and general gameplay is a lot better. Will definitely consider it, because it's a fun concept and if the sequels are as detailed as the first than that's more than admirable. I've actually grown into it a little now, just taking my time getting properly levelled before trying the story (which was my plan anyway, I want the disembowel skill for the special ops guys). I have no plans for the ridiculous Saint achievement, so I'm just going by racking up levels and letting the stupid people die/get eaten. I, erm, assume getting an ending lets you carry your stats over, like when you die. Fallout 3 will come first though, so look forward to those posts coming soon to this thread! Content: there is one LA Noire case not available for download on Xbox Live. It's probably in the "Complete Edition" or whatever, but I got it when it first came out in order to take advantage of an offer. They even reference said case in the standard levels! Sucks, because I enjoyed the core of the game and I don't think it's one that really lends itself towards replays; it'd be nice to revisit it with something fresh.
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Aug 21, 2014 15:51
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I realise I'm a bit late to the "things happening without your input" discussion, but to me it's like the difference between playing Dead Rising and playing a version of Dead Rising where you can only get the "Transmissionary" achievement. Dead Rising is a hectic, intense game and you can miss out on stuff if you dawdle or don't plan ahead. I think that's fine, it's challenging and I'm not going to be too bothered if I miss saving some dummy who would rather eat pies all day than accept my help. Heck, leave the story so long as I can run zombies over with a lawnmower! To get the "Transmissionary" achievement though, you have to plan and structure your gameplay in advance. I'm not into that. I know it works for some, but not me, I don't feel like video games should necessarily be something I have to revise and do homework for. Thankfully in this case, it works... if you don't want to do the achievement, you don't do it! I've watched videos of someone doing it and had fun because it's fairly impressive, but no, I will not be doing it. For something like Fallout or Elder Scrolls... to be honest, I'm probably fine as it is. I know that might make me a dumb armchair gamer or something, but those are games I can wile away hours on. I don't mind the typical morality choices, where you close yourself off to an EVIL GUY QUEST by being Saintly McSaint (both series do this, not always with very much gravitas it has to be said), but I don't want to start helping Moira with her survival guide, go off somewhere else for a bit to try and find my dad, and then return to find that Moira's done all the work herself, too slow, start all over again loser! Sure it's unrealistic, but these are games where Lovecraft stories are canon. It's probably all about tone really. I think being the head of all the mystical guilds and secret societies is a little silly too. That New Vegas route, where the aspect of the universe revolving around you is downplayed, sounds a little better while maintaining the leniency in gameplay (I've never played New Vegas, only watched clips). On-topic, something annoying in Fallout 3: you can, after a while, unlock a feature that allows you to profit from killing bad guys. To do this, you take fingers from their bodies and sell them to a special society of do-gooders who are based out in the middle of nowhere. The problem is whenever you fast-travel to said base, you spawn alongside one or two groups of powerful enemies. After a while they're not much of a problem, but you still have to kill them every time. If you say screw this nonsense and just waltz inside without taking care of them, said special society of do-gooders go BANANAS and the one you're supposed to speak to will likely run outside like an idiot, where you can potentially lose them forever (on a console, where you can't just move them around by pressing a few buttons). I did this once. I had to attack her to force her back inside, then wait until they'd forgotten all about it. 
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Oct 21, 2014 19:08
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This one is probably just me being a mega-dummy, but I don't understand how the reloading benches in Fallout: New Vegas are supposed to work. It seems I can make some 12ga buckshot ammo or something because I have the primer, lead and all that, but then it's not in my inventory after I confirm how much I want? The tutorials either seem kind of incomplete or really wordy. That and the workbench crafting seem like nice ideas, but there's also just too much junk to keep track of. I went with the idea of taking points off of Strength because it worked well enough for me in Fallout 3, but it does mean that carrying around a bunch of junk with the aim of fixing it up later gets me bogged down easy. Think I might just sell the junk I have so far and pass on the whole feature (I'm at the part where you get to Primm, so pretty much at the start).
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Dec 2, 2014 18:23
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I can see why some people prefer Fallout: New Vegas to Fallout 3, but I sometimes think that it's a little overcomplicated. After completing the first act (which is quite linear, but in a good way), the game really opens up... but it does this by throwing a bunch of quests at you all at once, all from or relating to different factions that have different relationships with one another. It's still fun because it gives you things to do, but it really raises its head when you follow up on a suggestion to meet the Brotherhood of Steel. They arrest you and fit you with an explosive collar, effectively holding you prisoner until you "deal with" an NCR Ranger for them. It seems like you can do something with the Ranger's radio or pass a speech check, which I would've liked considering I've been working for the NCR previously... but I couldn't pass the speech check nor see the radio (he was apparently in the wrong place due to another New Vegas glitch). Therefore I had to kill him in order to continue with the Brotherhood quest, but in a moment of inconsistency I'm apparently not given a bad reputation with the NCR anyway? The only way I found out about most of this was by looking online (and even then I can't find an explanation for the last thing I mentioned), which takes us back to the discussion a while ago about games that get you looking online for things. I don't like it.
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Dec 12, 2014 18:04
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Through the PS4 I'm replaying FF7 for the first time in many years. As a mini-minigame, nothing tops the random slap fight between Tifa and Scarlet on Disc 2. I'm dreading the chocobos.
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Jul 26, 2016 21:54
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Alhazred posted:If you start to date the medic you won't lose your weapons if you die. And you can date the police lady (the one who likes her men chubby) to keep all your weapons after getting busted too. Amazingly, these little bonuses even carried over to another save as long as you kept the file where you'd dated both of them, giving San Andreas a major advantage over Vice City and III in retrospect. The problem is that the medic is on the second island, and the policewoman is on the final island, so you still have to bite the bullet a little on your first playthrough. Also, there's very little to even hint at their existence in the game. Unfortunately there's no such solution to the lack of mission checkpoints. GTAV has really spoiled us there. I keep thinking about getting the GTA Trilogy for PS4, but I replayed Vice City and San Andreas fairly recently anyway. They were fun for the most part, though there are inevitably some bits that really suck. For me, Vice City had the target practice minigame at the downtown AmmuNation (probably not that hard with a mouse, but very irritating with a controller joystick on a large TV) whilst San Andreas had the Mount Chiliad cycling races, which I don't think I've ever fully won without cheating (i.e. letting them all win then sniping them one by one as they sit at the finish line).
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Jul 27, 2016 10:40
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Nuebot posted:How about GTAV's flight school? To be honest I never had much trouble with the aircraft in GTAV. The flight school in San Andreas was much more traumatising to me when I played it as a youngster. If there's any part of GTAV I wouldn't want to do again it would probably be the stunt jumps, since I found some of them to be very picky. That, or the many different types of collectibles that did nothing. A special shout out to the UFO part on the canyon bridge and every peyote plant you find in the ocean.
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Jul 27, 2016 11:26
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muscles like this? posted:The fake Scientology stuff is worth doing once but gently caress ever doing it on a subsequent playthrough. I actually did do it twice. I wanted the wicked trophies!  Never again, though I did take the opportunity to explore the desert a little bit more. EDIT: Regrettable posted:oldpainless is in my top 5 favorite posters on this site. Same.
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Jul 29, 2016 07:31
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While we're kind of on the subject, MGSV: TPP is great but: - The boss fights. The Metal Gear Solid series has for a long time had memorable and creative boss fights. I mean, who could forget the man in the gas mask who could read your memory card, the morbidly obese explosives expert who ran around on roller skates whilst sipping wine through a straw, or the 100+ year-old photosynthetic sniper who could occupy multiple game areas at once? MGSV... doesn't really have any of that. True, you do fight a literal flame demon in a unique setting (an abandoned African post-imperial industrial zone) where the gimmick is you have to try and douse him with water, but apart from that you're limited to fist-fighting an annoying child and taking on squadrons of blank, silent supersoldiers (the primary antagonist is stepped on by Metal Gear in a cutscene, if you can believe that). To add to the disappointment, you're really encouraged not to fight said supersoldiers on your first playthrough, rather you're just supposed to run away and lose them... and when you're actually forced into a direct fight with them in mission 29, you'll wish you could run away from them, as they're just big bullet sponges who you simply have to shoot/blow up whilst avoiding their attacks. Fighting this game's version of Metal Gear isn't much better, though it is a bit more intense on extreme mode. EDIT: There's also a sniper battle that is okay. - Unlike in MGS3, where you had to eat all the animals to sustain Snake's stamina, in MGSV you get the opportunity to extract many lovable critters from the combat zones in aid of an environmentalist NGO! And what's more, they eventually get their own pad in the form of an oil rig zoo, which you can visit any time you like! Awesome. Except, you don't actually get to see half the animals you can capture. How does this work? Well, you get your R&D guys to supply you with special capture cages, which you then place at very select places on the main maps (i.e. you look up a Youtube video telling you exactly where to put them if you really care that much). When you leave the map you get a message telling you which animals you caught, and they get added to your database. You don't get to see them in the game world, nor do you get to see them in your zoo. Oddly this includes all the snakes, but even more dishearteningly it also includes some cute pussy cats. Like several other things in the game, it reeks of something they planned to implement more fully but didn't get a chance to before all the shenanigans went down. - Some of the bonus mission tasks are particularly trying. One of the best examples, involving a classic video game error, takes place in mission 14, where you have to infiltrate an enemy camp and extract a certain prisoner. There are several prisoners at the camp who are all about to be interrogated, and one of the bonus tasks is to listen to all four interrogations. This in itself is a bit janky, as the camp is quite big and you will likely find yourself waiting for the dudes to get there whilst they walk around in circles, but it's particularly bad because the soldiers are made to kill the prisoners after their scenes are finished. Can you see where this is going? (guard kills a prisoner, guard sees dead prisoner, guard puts base on alert thinking you did it and you have to reload, hoping it doesn't happen again) Also, it's a plot point in this mission that the prisoners are British, yet they speak with typical American accents... and, in a great line reading, one refers to a character known as The Viscount as The Viz-count. There are a couple more tasks like this, which thankfully you don't need to do unless... - You're going for 100%. If you're like me and you're a dork who has nothing better to do at the weekends, getting 100% in MGSV is actually quite doable (despite what I said above, most of the bonus mission tasks are quite fun, if you're not just being asked to pick a certain out-of-the-way flower or something). However, to get 100% you also need to collect all the blueprints, and this requires you to clear all of the main offline dispatch missions. Dispatch missions cannot be performed by the player, instead you send off a battalion of your troops to another part of the globe to accomplish a task which takes several real-time hours. The last few are given the S difficulty, meaning that even if you enlist only your top guys (who you almost certainly need online rewards to get a hold of) you'll still only have around a 65% chance of success. These missions are supposed to be played in the background, but if you're an idiot like me then you'll have done everything else already. I just went around trying to get all the codename emblems, which involved me killing so many people that Snake officially turned "bad", and now has full-body bloodstains he can't wash off. Yuck. - Also everything else people have talked about a million times already (story, pacing, online nonsense, etc.). I've been playing Dead Rising 2 recently, so I might put up some more draggings later. Hedgehog Pie has a new favorite as of 11:32 on Feb 23, 2017 |
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Feb 23, 2017 11:17
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Action Tortoise posted:I really dislike the dodge in this game. It comes out so slow and I don't think there's any i-frames during the whole thing. I actually prefer it to the dodge from the first Dead Rising game! Though this is because it's now a joystick-clicking action, rather than a tap-the-joystick-in-your-desired-direction-quickly-twice action. One of my controllers is a bit crummy, so you can imagine what it's like when I have to play the first game with it... food court bailiff posted:I had to replay mission 14 a bunch because I am poo poo at video games and I literally never saw them freak out about the body after killing a prisoner, I think they must have seen something else in your game. The Internet seemed to be hinting that it's a common issue with that mission, though you could be very much right also. To clarify, I think it specifically concerns the second and third prisoners (a man and a woman I think?) who are being held together at the torture area near the swampside shack.
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Feb 23, 2017 16:16
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Calaveron posted:I mean they could've just made it an arcadey mini game where you rampage through both maps trying to cause as much havoc as possible for a high score This would've been like Godzilla, or if you prefer, the final level of that Rugrats game BioEnchanted played recently. Meaning it would've been awesome.
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Feb 23, 2017 17:54
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I've been playing Stardew Valley recently, and it's a nice chill relaxing game. I always liked the concept of the Harvest Moon games, but never really had the patience to play them for very long. This game feels much more accessible and pacey, I like that. A constant problem I seem to have though is that dialogue boxes will appear and then disappear pretty much instantly, before I've had a chance to read what a character is saying. I think it's a bug, I've seen it in videos of other people playing too, but it seems to have been around for a while and is pretty crucial for a game so reliant on character and charm. Has anyone else experienced this, or is it just me? I don't think it's a case of me double-pressing the button... I've found that the bundle rewards are a little bit inconsistent. The mine carts and the greenhouse are both really useful, and the desert has enough extra features to make it a worthwhile addition, but it doesn't seem like I ever get the opportunity to pan for ore. The quarry is also a bit of a let down, though I appreciate that it can make it easier to obtain rare gems quickly. A super minor one: once you donate soapstone to the museum, its description will inform you that it "is very popular for carving". Despite this, it's still treated as a bad gift to give to Leah... who is a sculptor, and who asks you to look for materials she could use in her casual dialogue. Heck, she's the only character who likes being given the nigh-useless driftwood item for this reason! Fun game though. I might post some more goodies about other games now that I can check to see what I've already talked about here... Hedgehog Pie has a new favorite as of 22:32 on Jul 18, 2017 |
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Jul 18, 2017 22:29
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I'm a complete dweeb and my favourite video game of all time is Metal Gear Solid 2. I recently got the chance to play it again for the first time in many years, thanks to the power of streaming on PS4, and I was really happy that I still enjoyed it. Thematically it feels so much more relevant now than it did in 2001, it looks good, it's pretty funny when it wants to be, and the core gameplay more or less still works for me. But it is absolutely not a "perfect game" by any stretch of the imagination. - Using guns in this game is such a chore. Granted, it's a stealth-based game where you're encouraged not to use your weapons, but in some scenarios it's largely unavoidable. The problem lies in the pressure button controls. I seem to recall that I had once mastered the art of pointing my gun at something in first-person view without firing it, but apparently I've completely lost that ability as now I usually end up firing it everywhere like a madman. It might be that the Xbox version (which I've also played a lot of) improved on this from the PS2 original and I got too comfortable with it. BANG BANG, guards alerted! - The Substance expanded edition contains a large number of VR missions that typically fall into one of two categories: mind-numbingly boring/repetitive, or incredibly frustrating. The worst of the bunch are the ones you play as MGS1 Snake, but get this, I can't even unlock those levels! I'm stuck on a mission where you have to protect a prone Meryl from an onslaught of guards (over 25 of them) using only the two types of sniper rifle. The series' tendency to gift its protagonists a sudden onset of Parkinson's disease whenever a sniping mission comes up is infamous enough as it is, but I've also found that missions with a large number of targets on-screen at once actually struggle to run properly as well. Your aim ends up jumping around all over the place, like you're looking at a mid-2000s webcam call. Maybe this is just an issue with the streamed version: infuriatingly, none of the Youtube players seem to have an issue with it and will get perfect headshots every time. - Collecting dog tags for bonus items (by holding up practically every guard in the game and threatening them) is extremely tedious. Thankfully I will not be losing sleep over not getting them all, or finishing all of the VR missions for that matter! - The complaints about the camera are familiar to most fans I think. I think the game generally uses good angles to suit you if you are stationary, but moving towards the bottom of the screen without a radar, as you will be doing in the Substance-exclusive "Snake Tales" missions? That's like the deadliest game in this game. - Only the original PS2 version of Substance seems to include the ridiculous SKATEBOARDING MINIGAME.
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Jun 5, 2019 20:02
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Hot take: MGS3 is worse on the cutscene front than MGS2. Much worse.
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Jun 8, 2019 00:36
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I know everyone says that MGS3 is objectively better than MGS2 but I just can't see it. I would say it's a lot of little things but despite being okay at the first two games I am miserable at this one.
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Jun 8, 2019 23:22
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I think I might be just really bad at the game. I'm playing the rerelease now for the first time, but I played the original version back in the day (and I remember enjoying it, although I still found it harder than 2). Guards seem to see me even when I've painstakingly switched to some better camouflage, and while the movable camera is great I still get snuck on by them because everything feels so... distant. I just spent ages fighting the Ocelot Unit. The Ocelot Unit for crying out loud! And I maintain that the cutscenes and dialogue bits still feel longer and more frequent than those in 2, where that seems to be a major criticism.
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Jun 9, 2019 00:28
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JackSplater posted:The number in the Metal Gear Solid game titles isn't the number of the game, it's actually the hours of cutscenes per game sections. Lol
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Jun 9, 2019 00:54
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You're definitely right on the narrative logistics side of things though I'm not sure if I agree about the characters... except for The Boss who is a legitimately interesting MGS character with little camp value. I acknowledge that MGS2's excuse of "the characters are supposed to be two-dimensional!!" is an extremely slippery one, and I do think that the cutscenes in MGS3 have some really great moments of animation that probably hadn't been seen in the series up to that point. I'm just not a fan of the pacing, at least in the opening act. I'm probably just frustrated at not being as good at 3 as I am at 2, and I'm not sure why that is (no one else seems to struggle with it!). Maybe I should just start again on easy or something.
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Jun 9, 2019 13:08
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Strom Cuzewon posted:Sons of Liberty is the best because of the amazing bait and switch. It gets a nice callback in Snake Eater - at the start you get to set the control scheme to be the same as either MGS1 or 2,and if you pick 2 you start off wearing a Raiden mask (that you can use to confuse Volgin with) I completely bought it the first time I played. What a loving mark I was.
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Jun 9, 2019 17:54
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To tell the truth, I've rarely had to eat or drink in either of the two playthroughs I've done of RDR2. If you're not going to eat or drink then you need to sleep, but that comes with the added bonus of letting you reset the time to morning so you can actually see stuff again, and can be done easily at most camps or towns. My complaint would be that the "cores" are really small and badly explained - I didn't fully get how they worked or how to heal them until about halfway through my first playthrough. The game also has the issue of not letting you set up camp because you're too close to "activity", even if you're out in the middle of nowhere with no one in sight, but this was a problem with the first game too.
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Jun 11, 2019 21:06
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I will admit any day of the week that Metal Gear Solid 3 is really good, even if I complain about it and prefer 2 myself. But the on-rails shooter segment and the following EVA escort mission towards the end are uniformly terrible. They are!
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Jun 16, 2019 04:56
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I feel weird for not enjoying Metal Gear Solid 3 as much as everyone else does, but I feel downright bad for not being able to get into Chrono Trigger much if at all. I don't know why. I am dragging these games down. EDIT: Just to clarify, this is my third attempt at playing the game. I get the charm of the characters and dialogue, the battle mechanics are clever yet simple, the music is top notch, and that the art direction is wonderful for its time, but I can't shake the idea that I enjoyed certain later games in the genre first and it's robbed the narrative of all its dramatic beats. You could say that it's impossible to enjoy it after playing certain games, but I love old films still to this day. I don't know, weird things. Hedgehog Pie has a new favorite as of 03:25 on Jun 19, 2019 |
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Jun 19, 2019 03:21
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I'm playing Metal Gear Solid 4 for the first time ever. I haven't finished the game yet so I don't know if there's some sort of grand irony waiting for me, but the content of the Beauty and the Beast backstories and the manner in which they're delivered is completely ridiculous/hilarious. Even by the standards of Metal Gear Solid!
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Jun 29, 2019 03:40
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I just started playing Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker and it looks pretty good, but it's made me feel a bit grumpy because it doesn't seem to feel the need to autosave or let you manually save even after the obligatory 30-minute+ MGS introductory cutscenes! It stands out because even MGS4, which I also just played for the first time and have some decidedly mixed feelings about, has multiple prompts that let you save during that game's rather absurd amount of long cutscenes.
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Jun 30, 2019 15:18
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Inspector Gesicht posted:I had low expectations for Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter and I was still disappointed. I played Crimes and Punishments on the PS Now streaming service. It's an okay low-budget game: I liked Holmes' voice-acting and characterisation, and while the cases are fairly simple the game doesn't necessarily just hand you the correct solution, which is good. By far the worst bits are the parts you just mentioned. The arm-wrestling match in the bar was a pain, though I kind of got the hang of it eventually. The sewer maze puzzle was just annoying. It wasn't hard per se, but it took up so much time and the game didn't do a very good job of showing what each button did. It didn't help that the case it appeared in was already needlessly convoluted, even by Sherlock Holmes standards. After finishing it I started up The Devil's Daughter. I was instantly disappointed that it showed a younger Holmes, and I tried it for a little bit but just couldn't get into it. It doesn't sound like I was missing too much.
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Jul 1, 2019 12:41
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Which cool Pokemon did they get rid of? Edit: genuine question, #noasshole.
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Jul 4, 2019 02:31
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RareAcumen posted:Peace Walker owns on a gameplay sense I like Peace Walker on the whole, but the vehicle bosses are horrible and are the main reason I will never fully finish the game. I really like the gameplay in MGSV. To me it's probably the best in the series in that regard, and I imagine it's what Kojima was going for all along (alongside the lady with ripped tights who shows you her butt all the time, etc.). Obviously it's unfinished though, and as a result the structure is all over the place. The intro, which may well have never been intended to be the intro in the first place, is long and increasingly dull, and the story barely picks up until you're finally told to make contact with Huey, which depending on how you play could be many hours into the game.
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Jul 23, 2019 06:57
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Casey Finnigan posted:If you think MGS 4 has a better beginning than MGS V, I don't know what to tell you. I think I can agree with you on that one, although it is somewhat close for me. MGS4 throws you into the game's central action a bit quicker*, but on the other hand it lacks the world-building it needs as a game set ten minutes into the future, and aside from the "playing both sides" mechanic I find the entire first act kind of dry to tell the truth (definitely setting a theme in the process!). MGSV's is explosive and more colourful, it's just that to me it kind of keeps on moving without really going anywhere. As a fan of the series I think I trained myself to sit through minutes of pointless/weird dialogue, rather than scripted action set pieces that keep taking the control away from you. It also doesn't so much provide one with intrigue so much as it leaves you scratching your head and shrugging your shoulders. As said, I found it fairly gripping the first time, but if someone doesn't like it to begin with I think it holds up even worse under repeated playthroughs. * This is not counting the first of several interminable briefing cutscenes that they tried to jazz up by including some interactive elements, only to fail due to how plodding and stupid they were overall.
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Jul 23, 2019 19:00
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I also don't think it should have had specific objectives and an S-rank to get, but that's entirely on 100% completion weenies like me. I do remember there being a dislike of it for a long time though. It was already infamous by the time I played it.
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Jul 24, 2019 16:10
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I don't think Ocarina of Time has a great intro, but having played it fairly recently in the form of randomisers, the "cutting down bushes/throwing pots to grind for money" bit is not as bad as I once thought it was. There are, I think, enough rupees hidden around the map that I actually think it's a fairly nice way to get you exploring and used to the controls. There's probably too much text but I've always had a special fondness for *grumble grumble*. If there's a single bit I never look forward to in OoT it would have to be the bottom of the well. I've done it so many times and know exactly where to go, but somehow there's always one fake floor that I always fall for!
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Jul 26, 2019 20:10
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FF8 was the first one I played, and even though I didn't really get junctioning (for all of the above reasons) until much later, I still had trouble going back to FF7 and the materia system for some reason. I replayed FF7 on PS4 more recently, and the battle mechanics were much better than I remembered; unless you're trying to get all the limit breaks asap or do things like the master All materia money trick, there's not really all that much grinding required honestly. I'm not sure what exactly I was doing wrong when I played it as a kid. I probably just misunderstood some of the mechanics, or missed that certain weapons and armour provide decreased or absolutely no materia growth. I also probably ran away from more than my fair share of battles. I agree with bewilderment's post above, but the thing I find hard to shake about FF8 now is that it's hard not to completely break the junctioning system. Like, another amendment could be a pop-up saying, "Look bozo, you don't really need to spend hours drawing 100s of cure spells all at once! Really, you don't! Just get a few and move on!  ", but I think those who go back and play the game now will just do it out of habit. Most people don't even seem to balance it out between drawing and playing card games, they just do loads of drawing and loads of card games. I mean, the luxury then is that you don't need to worry about any of the boss fights until, like, the final quarter of the game at the earliest, but it all comes down to what makes the game fun to you I guess. Sometimes, if you're not breaking things, it's like the menu is just winking at you and begging you to try it.Things dragging down FF7 for me: some enemy skills being overly complex to obtain (this is another one for the 100% goobers but I still don't know how you're supposed to get ones like the chocobo one without a guide), some areas being so murkily and scratchily designed that they're flat-out annoying to navigate (Mt. Nibel stands out), and I'm one of those people who thinks that the Great Glacier is just a bit too big for what it is. YMMV on the Fort Condor minigame (I don't mind it), but the amount of errors in the text boxes surrounding it suggest to me that it was not play-tested much. What I like about FF8 is its art direction, which I think still looks incredible in some places. Dragging it down is obviously the completely inane plot and the attempts to make a love story out of an entirely unappealing, unmatching couple. Also, the much more open battle system where characters are really only differentiated by their limit breaks seemed to have the bizarre side-effect of making the characters themselves much more boring. I think people might have given the junction system more of a pass if the characters were actually engaging within the story. As it is the most interesting main party member is Squall, so... yeah. Hedgehog Pie has a new favorite as of 15:47 on Jul 30, 2019 |
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Jul 30, 2019 15:43
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JackSplater posted:Speaking of this, GTA 5: Forklift section at the docks. I think it's partly a joke at your expense (which they can get away with, because everyone will buy the game anyway) and partly a holdover from San Andreas, which was widely marketed with the idea that you'd be doing something different in every mission, for better or worse. Before that, most missions followed the standard formula of "go to this place, shoot these guys", which they largely returned to for GTAIV. Everyone hated GTAIV and thought it was boring, so I would not be surprised if GTAV's missions were simultaneously an attempt to rectify this and get one over on GTAIV's critics. Classic Rockstar, some would say.
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Aug 9, 2019 17:41
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