Have you played a game with timed parry done right? |
- Have you played a game with timed parry done right?
- Are there any games that support independent game bots?
- Text based/Point and Click game relevance on mobile platforms
- So how do you feel about game reviews?
- How much humor should be present in the Dead Island series?
- Is it a bad thing to purchase games based on "mood"? If so, then how do you decide what to purchase next?
- Psychonauts' achievements irk me
- Relatable Sports Games for SNES-Era Gamer?
- Two Bros Lets Play: Alpha Protocol (Part 21)
- 2017 May Be The Year of Inclusion...And That's Awesome For Consumers
| Have you played a game with timed parry done right? Posted: 03 Oct 2016 11:28 AM PDT I had a discussion last week regarding a feature I don't see a lot in games: when parry/blocking an attack, you have to time your block just right. One game I remember where I had to do that, was Condemned: Criminal Origin. In that game, you are facing psychos with melee weapons, and you only have a few rounds in your pistol, so most of time you have to fight with melee weapons too. But when you try to block an incoming attack, you have to time it just right or you'll fail to block, and take damage. When I was playing it, I felt it was very hard to get the timing right. The enemies attack pretty fast and my window of blocking is very short. Another game was an earlier version of Mount&Blade. You also have to time your block, it was not too hard but when you have 3 people attacking you at the same time, it becomes impossible to block. And obviously, due to the nature of M&B it's always you-versus-many. Later on, this feature was removed. Finally, with the original Prince of Persia (PoP1), where you only fight one enemy at a time, the timed block was a blast. The enemies attack very fast, especially after they successfully block your attack, they make an attack immediately, there's no room for you to think at all. So I had to pretty much always hit block after an attack. It gets into an interesting rhythm. I even remember, vaguely, before TES Oblivion was out, the devs were saying that you had to time your block. I don't think that feature made it into the game. The point it, it seems like games try to avoid this feature because it adds difficulty. But I feel like a successful timed block followed by a "surprise attack" done by the player should be pretty satisfying. Of course, the block allowance window must be long enough to make it not so stressful for the player. Have you played any recent games that does timed parry well? [link] [comments]  |
| Are there any games that support independent game bots? Posted: 03 Oct 2016 01:43 PM PDT Have you seen a bot that can traverse a virtual game universe and build up points on its own? I guess it would make more sense in an online game like Skyrim Online, Destiny, Guild Wars, The Division. I am sort of imagining a concept from Anime like in Ghost in the Shell or Sword Art Online. This bot character would not stay in one area and be able to roam freely. Also, it may build up a large amount on experience and be able to destroy weaker characters or maybe not. Has this been done before, why or why not? [link] [comments]  |
| Text based/Point and Click game relevance on mobile platforms Posted: 03 Oct 2016 11:03 AM PDT When I was in my mid teens, I went through a text based/ Point and Click phase playing Hotel Dusk, Phoenix Wright, 999 and others on the Nintendo DS. The dual screen and touch pad allowed for an increase in interactivity and was the home for very fun and unique games. Now that handheld popularity has transitioned to mobile gaming, I'm wondering if these types of games have or can have a presence or growing popularity on mobile devices. [link] [comments]  |
| So how do you feel about game reviews? Posted: 02 Oct 2016 09:43 PM PDT Something I think I learned recently, some gamers swear by game reviews, some are partially influenced by game reviews... And some gamers hate game reviews viewing them as limiting/negative/etc/. I first started reading game reviews a lot, because one of my family members was very into them, and used to review games as a job. (For privacy reasons I won't say anymore than that). Interestingly though, in extreme contrast to that I've recently seen the argument that game reviews are generally a waste of time, that they can become toxic, and basically, influence people into hating a game they used to love, or influence people into never trying a game they'd actually like. Learning of these two contrasting views, has been a little bit of a confusing experience to me. It can feel slightly disorienting to grow up in an environment that is pro-game reviews, and have that be all you've known growing up, then encountering the opposite mindset. Although that said of course not very surprisingly, game reviews that are more positive are much less likely to be a sore or touchy subject than more negative game reviews. Another issue with game reviews is, they virtually never take personal preferences or tastes into account. Because of things called preferences, something that may make or break another game to you, may be a total non issue or may not even be noticed by someone else. You may also have some extremely strong preferences, maybe you prefer a game that is 100% player skill based, or alternatively maybe you prefer more "chaos" factors like randomness and other things sometimes beating player skill, you may also love games that force you to wait for progress- or you may despise mechanics like that. You may love games heavily based on the real world and real people to some degree, or you may alternatively vastly prefer a game where you feel like a tourist on Mars. You may even have very unusual tastes, like say, you prefer melee centric sci-fi when melee centric fantasy is way more popular (as sci-fi is very often centered on guns). Or maybe you like medieval worlds with no magic (another rarity in video games). You may be the type that more easily gets bored of what becomes familiar, and who loves it when a sequel is extremely different from the prequel. You may in contrast, not be able to like a sequel unless it's similar enough to it's prequel. There's also the whole PvE purist vs PvP purist spectrum, I think with most people being somewhere in the middle. Interestingly it also seems quite common for someone to prefer PvE in one game but PvP in another. And even PvP fans are split into multiple demographics of taste. Some for instance prefer honorable purely skill based combat, others like more chaos and treachery. To some people stuff like random crits are very off putting, while others love the amount of chaos they can cause. Then there's the fact some prefer free for all, where some prefer it be team based. Some people like the thought of a game that's say, elves vs orcs, and be fascinated by how the strengths and weaknesses of both would effect a large scale battle. Other people on the other hand, resent said game design with their feelings being "My Orc/Elf isn't narrow minded enough to harm someone for such trivial reasons!". Some people want their characters to partially reflect their real life morals, where as other people want to roleplay a character they would hate and disgust if they actually existed... And some people don't care much one way or another. You may also have different preferences in how you want a game to be freeform, and how you want it to be strict. For example, some people view open worlds as overwhelming or less exciting, and prefer more linear world design, so in that sense they like more strict level design. For some people, stuff like some levels or areas having weaker or stronger populations is thrilling, but to others it feels overtly restrictive or doesn't make sense to them. As yet another example, some people love the concept of some materials of armor/weapons just being better than others, and say, outgrowing their wood sword for a steel sword, then eventually replacing their steel sword with an even better alien-material-sword. But to other people, a wood or steel sword feels like a critically important part of their characters history, and would resent suffering severe stat penalties for not using a material or weapon they consider less interesting or less appropriate for their character. Some people love vehicles in first person shooters, other people can't stand them. And of course- some people have the same very strong preferences for every game, some peoples preferences are based on how they feel a game franchise should be, and there's a nearly infinite amount of combination of personal tastes and preferences. You could also not feel strongly about the same game mechanics a lot of other people do. There's also probably numerous gameplay mechanics in various games, that some people view as wasting processing power better spent elsewhere, yet other people would quit the game without them. I could probably go on, and on and on, on just how diverse tastes and preferences in video games can be. My point with that wall of text being, there's a pretty good chance most game reviews will never be in-depth enough to cover the personal preferences I described as mere examples. And there's thousands to millions of types of preferences or more amongst 7 billion+ people I'll never be able to make an accurate summary of. Even something like "Very freeform game" or "Very Linear game" can be overtly vague and cause all types of misunderstandings. Just as an example... As far as moving vertically is concerned, Morrowind is a lot more freeform than Skyrim. But then as far as say, weapon materials are concerned, Skyrim is a lot more freeform in Morrowind, because in Skyrim a weapons material isn't what most of it's damage is based on, unlike Morrowind. In that paragraph, I gave one example, of why it's overtly vague to claim one of those two games is "more linear" or "more freeform" than the other. In spite of being from the same series, and both being more freeform than most videogames- both games are in some aspects more or less freeform than the other. And get this... "More freeform" isn't inherently a positive or negative thing. It's all a matter of opinion of rather more freedom in a videogame is good or not, and there's all sorts of preferences people have in HOW they want a game to feel free, and how they want it to feel strictly structured. I've also more times than I can count, seen people claim a game is "Objectively good" because it matches their tastes. More times than I can count, I've seen reviews that are basically "Well I liked it so it's good" or "I didn't like it cause it's bad". It would seem, a lot of people forget the fact they're biased, and often define what matches their tastes as "good" instead of "what they like", or alternatively what doesn't match their tastes as "bad". I would never claim that every game, or song I like "Is a good game" or "Is a good song". They just SEEM GOOD TO ME, because they happen to trigger the positive, feelgood parts of my brain, while avoiding the things that bore or annoy me, all because of a bunch of combined very subtle traits they have as a sum of all their parts, that just DOES something that causes a sense of awe, admiration, and engagement in my mind, and fully manages to absorb my conscious and even subconscious attention. And when I say "my very complicated tastes", I'm not insinuating that MY tastes are specifically complex compared to other people- 99% of the entire population have extremely complicated preferences in their minds for just about everything. "Good RPG", "Good storyline", "Good shooter", "Good MMO", "Good controls", "Good graphics", "Good physical engine", aren't remotely close enough to take tastes into account. The bottom line being, unless you can somehow find a person with identical preferences to yourself, and then have them play a specific video game very frequently over and over again, recording their every positive and negative thought as it occurs before they forget about it being distracted by some other part of the game, and then like a mind reader they tell you all the parts that matter most to you and do so without major spoilers... You have no 100% guaranteed way of knowing if you'll like a video game or not, based off of someone else's review of a game. In spite of all of this, watching/reading video game reviews, is something I still do sometimes. Partially as a matter of habit, a pretty old habit for me, and you know the saying of old habits being hard to break. I do it sometimes out of curiosity, sometimes cause I don't feel 100% sure about trying a game or not, and sometimes out of boredom, and again habit. Some would say researching game reviews is worth it, or that I may as well continue to engage in an old habit I've had since childhood, some more in between would suggest I sometimes look at them but with a big grain of salt... And some people would insist that said reviews are toxic, and that I and everyone else should avoid them like the plague because they might influence me to avoid or dislike something I would have otherwise liked or tried. ... That all said, what do YOU think of video game reviews? Does your whole entertainment world revolve around them? Are they something you reluctantly look into when feeling deeply unsure of something? Or do you always avoid them like them like they're a corrupting anti-fun plague? Or is your answer something different from that? [link] [comments]  |
| How much humor should be present in the Dead Island series? Posted: 03 Oct 2016 06:09 AM PDT I have played both main Dead Island games and they both had a small sense of humor to them in the blueprint descriptions and some dialogue for side missions. The thing is, though, the story and most of the game is presented more as a serious tone and when humor is included it feels out of place almost. Recently, I bought the current gen collection of Dead Island and played a little of the included arcade game Retro Revenge. At the same time I decided to check out the Dark Horse Dead Island comic. Both of which are set in California just like Dead Island 2 was established to be in the reveal trailer years ago. The trailer itself also has a big emphasis on humor and Here it is for those who haven't seen it How do you feel about the series going more towards humor than it previously did? Should they embrace the humor in the way they seem to be going or is the more serious approach better for the game? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Oct 2016 04:45 PM PDT For example, I know for a fact I will eventually play and love Stardew Valley, Shovel Knight, Okami, and many other games on my to-buy list, but I can't bring myself to purchase any of them right now because I'm not "in the mood" for any of those kinds of games. But then I went and purchased something like Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning because I was "in the mood" for that kind of game, but I ended up playing only 10-15 hours of it and never finishing it because the open world RPG mood I was in wore off. That chain of events has happened to me a few times, so overall I think purchasing based on mood is a bad thing. But is the alternative to just buy what game you expect you'll like the most on your to-buy list? Because I think that has its own trappings as well, such as building up a huge backlog of great games that you never play because let's be honest, you still have to be "in the mood" to play a game even if you already own it. So tell me, how do you make your purchasing decisions? Do you have a good system? Why? [link] [comments]  |
| Psychonauts' achievements irk me Posted: 03 Oct 2016 09:18 AM PDT Fair warning, I'm going to put some spoilers up here and mark them, but if you're on mobile, they might not get hidden properly. I love Psychonauts. I love the mix of humor and creepiness. I love the collectible items in the scavenger hunt, I love the gameplay, but I think they could have toned the difficulty down a bit in the final levels. But above all, I love the detailed worlds, the characters, the experimental nature of some levels (like Waterloo), and I love that for 90% of this, the real rewards are lore or story related. But the Steam version's after-the-fact achievements ruin that IMO. Take the secret room in Mia Vodelo's level for example. Apart from finding a locked away memory, the real reward in finding the room is discovering something tragic about the character. I was blown away the first time I managed to find it, especially because I found it on my own. No youtube walkthrough, no gamefaqs, no Achievement Hunter, just me messing around in the game. But the fact that there's now an achievement attached to it cheapens that for me. Instead of being rewarded by story, the primary reward is "gamerscore" or whatever it's called on Steam. There's a couple other ones that really bug me. There's "I think they were impressed," which is an achievement you get by taking a key item and showing it to everyone instead of using it to immediately advance the story. When this game was first released in the PS2 era, this was just for fun, an example of "The Dev Team Thinks of Everything" trope. But now that there's an achievement attached, it feels a lot more forced. The devs are now basically saying, "Look at how much thought we put into this. Look!" and it feels a lot less organic. I really enjoyed using Clairvoyance to see how others perceive Raz. They didn't need to make the "Self-Aware" achievement to reward me for playing around, the different pieces of art were their own rewards. It feels like they're worried someone's going to miss the content so they have to point it all out to you. This is in danger of turning into a "You're not playing it right!" rant, but I do feel like some of the magic is gone from Whispering Rock Summer Camp now that these activities have achievements attached to them and aren't rewards in of themselves. [link] [comments]  |
| Relatable Sports Games for SNES-Era Gamer? Posted: 02 Oct 2016 04:08 PM PDT Hey there! I used to enjoy the simple football and baseball games for the SNES. I found the controls were pretty logical, and the games were pretty easy to pick up and play. Fast forward a few decades, and now I have a PS3/XBox 360. The other day I got a copy of Madden 13 and MLB 2007...wtf. I can't figure out how to get the ball more than 10 yards, can't stop any offensive move, and baseball? Yea, haven't hit a single pitch yet. Any recommendations for games that aren't absurdly complicated at this generation? [link] [comments]  |
| Two Bros Lets Play: Alpha Protocol (Part 21) Posted: 03 Oct 2016 05:22 AM PDT |
| 2017 May Be The Year of Inclusion...And That's Awesome For Consumers Posted: 02 Oct 2016 04:13 PM PDT Hi all, I'm excited as 2016 comes to a close, we have some blockbuster titles waiting for us. I want to talk about a few well-known upcoming triple-A games and how they are making baby-steps towards inclusion and diversity. COD : Infinite Warfare pairs the protagonists with a female partner. During the start of the game, the player is given command of a spaceship and this changes the dynamic of his relationship with his female partner. And it seems like the game will take some time to address this power shift and how it can hurt a friendship, made even more hurtful by the male-female power dynamic. I like this idea because hopefully it will have some commentary on just being a dude. Males are the default protagonist in many of our blockbuster games and there is never really any commentary about being a dude. You're just assume to be big, strong and quick with a gun. You're a fantasy/myth ideal, but not really a person. Maybe COD of all games can explore that identity and give us some perspective instead of treating dudes as defaults with no personality or recognition of the behavior society demands of them. Could a COD game be the first to have someone examine their privilege? Imagine that :) Battlefield 1 just slapped a black soldier on the cover in quite a bold move. Both COD and BF did have black soldiers on their covers in older games, but never in the WWI or WWII era, so this is a big move at a company acknowledging the contributions of real soldiers who weren't just square-jawed blue-eyed crew cut good ol' boys. And indeed the disgusting parts of Reddit took notice and complained with all the impotent rage. However, the larger decent and sane gaming community didn't mind at all. And BF1 looks to be a gorgeous game that will undoubtedly sell well...with a black dude on the cover! Mafia III's developers outright addressed the main character's "mixed race" (yes, this term is not scientific, but I don't know the replacement). And the game seems set to address it quite frankly. Watch_Dogs 2 tosses away Aiden Pierce for a more likeable, younger and black protagonist. And its not just a palette swap; the character meaningfully wants to play a role in the story because he was screwed by the system which he is now hacking. Again, the decent gaming community loves it. There isn't any shortage of people playing the protagonist in endless Let's Play before official release. These are just some of the games that are taking steps toward inclusion. Slapping a black guy on the cover could be perceived as "Tokenism," and that would be true if the devs did not really care for the character they created. So let's see if this is just an empty platitude to hush up the "SJW feminazis BLM terrorists," or a concerted effort by the industry to look at itself and really question why they over-represent one type of character when their paying customers have so much diversity. I'd also like to make another note about a trend I am noticing. I recently watched a talk about tabletop (dice and paper) roleplaying games. At a major convention, some fans gave a great presentation about the history of these games. Their high points; their low points and what is coming in the future. They admitted that as game designers themselves, they had been shitty to customers namely women and minorities. And they acknowledged that it was shitty (verbatim) and showed examples or large publishers changing that. Again, time will tell if this is genuine or just a palette swap. Finally, Hollywood is not fairing so well right now. They release two blockbusters about Egypt that featured no actual Egyptians. They make movies about Asian genius gambling and replace the cast with only white faces. Ghost in the Shell pretended that Japanese people don't exist when casting the lead role of a woman called MOTOKO KUSANAGI. And just this week, Tim Burton broke hearts by stating that its cool to make an all-white movie because years ago he once saw an all-black movie. Yeah, because that's logic. Anyways, I am trying to show that Hollywood is slow to catch up and will just make excuse after excuse to not examine themselves. Meanwhile, gamers and the people who make games are paving the path forward. Heck, even Black Ops 3 allowed the player to switch genders complete with two voice actors. These are COD Bro games! COD BRO! And these jingoistic PTSD-inducing games about American Exceptionalism had no problem with a female lead. Think about that the next time Hollywood tries to whine about how hard it is to be inclusive and still make money. Show them the sales charts for Blacks Ops 3 and its SJW gender-bending options. Show them the sales charts for Mafia III after release. Show them the sales charts for Infinite Warfare and Battlefield 1 when those drop. [link] [comments]  |
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