Try it with two players to see the models better. Or better yet, input your name when you play 4-player games so that way you can keep track of your character more easily.
Yeah, I know it is more viewable in two player, but I've mainly played it in four-player mode, since that seems to be the point of the game (it being called Melee and all).
Really, it is an OK fighter in 2-player, but nothing special. It really should be brilliant fun in four-player mode, but every time we've played, people have just spent most of the game saying "Huh? What's going on? Where am I?" then asking to play Mario Kart again after the first fight.
Try it with two players to see the models better. Or better yet, input your name when you play 4-player games so that way you can keep track of your character more easily.
Yeah, I know it is more viewable in two player, but I've mainly played it in four-player mode, since that seems to be the point of the game (it being called Melee and all).
Really, it is an OK fighter in 2-player, but nothing special. It really should be brilliant fun in four-player mode, but every time we've played, people have just spent most of the game saying "Huh? What's going on? Where am I?" then asking to play Mario Kart again after the first fight.
That's why it's a sort of "I don't get it" experience. Everyone says it is great fun. I've watched videos online, and they look brilliant, so I bought the game as one of my first Gamecube purchases. I was super-excited about it.
But I really can't get into it as a single player game, and I've tried to play it as a four-player game, and it was just chaotic, and not much fun at all. Every couple of months, I will put the game in the Gamecube to see if I "finally get it", but I just can't get into it, and neither can any of the group that I regularly play four-player games with.
I'll try again tonight. I'll select Hyrule Temple, fixed-camera, turn on player names, then play vs the CPU and see how it goes. Then I'll try to con some other people into playing. This is one game I really want to like. I feel like there is something wrong with me, or I am doing something wrong in setting up the games.
I'm another person who just didn't get Ocarina of Time. I got a fair way in out of a sense of duty, but soon realised that the boredom wasn't going to go away at all. There was very little NPC interaction, and a whole lot of getting lost and wondering what I was meant to be doing.
I couldn't stand A Link to the Past either. Maybe playing it after Chrono Trigger, Earthbound and Secret of Mana was a bad idea, but still - you expect a game on a pedestal that high to be at least a little bit fun.
Also - GTA San Andreas. Bought and loved every other PC GTA, but San Andreas... I just can't see how making me drive for hundreds of miles in the middle of nowhere is supposed to be entertaining, y'know?
I'm another person who just didn't get Ocarina of Time. I got a fair way in out of a sense of duty, but soon realised that the boredom wasn't going to go away at all. There was very little NPC interaction, and a whole lot of getting lost and wondering what I was meant to be doing.
I couldn't stand A Link to the Past either. Maybe playing it after Chrono Trigger, Earthbound and Secret of Mana was a bad idea, but still - you expect a game on a pedestal that high to be at least a little bit fun.
Also - GTA San Andreas. Bought and loved every other PC GTA, but San Andreas... I just can't see how making me drive for hundreds of miles in the middle of nowhere is supposed to be entertaining, y'know?
It was like Hyrule Field all over again.
You should play Majora's Mask. Most character interaction in the whole series, if not a ringer for the whole console action-adventure genre.
I'm another person who just didn't get Ocarina of Time. I got a fair way in out of a sense of duty, but soon realised that the boredom wasn't going to go away at all. There was very little NPC interaction, and a whole lot of getting lost and wondering what I was meant to be doing.
I couldn't stand A Link to the Past either. Maybe playing it after Chrono Trigger, Earthbound and Secret of Mana was a bad idea, but still - you expect a game on a pedestal that high to be at least a little bit fun.
Also - GTA San Andreas. Bought and loved every other PC GTA, but San Andreas... I just can't see how making me drive for hundreds of miles in the middle of nowhere is supposed to be entertaining, y'know?
It was like Hyrule Field all over again.
You should play Majora's Mask. Most character interaction in the whole series, if not a ringer for the whole console action-adventure genre.
Really? Hmm... well, a buddy of mine's got that, so alright, I'll give it a go. My expectations being as low as they can get for Zelda games, it'll probably be a nice surprise no matter what.
Yeah, what metalhead wouldn't love reducing classic songs to five buttons, or Sum 41 in any form
oh, totally. I mean, the idea of reducing complex real-life tasks to simpler, push button ones for the sake of creating an enjoyable game that only seeks to mimic, not simulate said real-life task is fucking asinine. I don't even play games because FPSes don't come with an arsenal of weapons to point at the monitor, each requiring continual maintenance to prevent jamming at a critical moment, and don't even get me started on the lack of realism in fucking RPGs. Clicking on someone to talk to them? What the fuck? Am I going to start clicking at my girlfriend to tell her I want sex now?
And man, it totally distracts me from enjoying anything whatsoever the moment it's in any way associated with something popular that I'm not a fan of. I just can't wrap my head around just beating one weaker stage in a game and moving on when the rest of it is solid gold. No, if one stage features bad music, or really, anything I find to be distasteful, I return the game, burn the game store to the ground and piss on the ashes.
gosh those are pretty picky and unreasonable
i can't say i understand why you feel that way about those things
Yeah, what metalhead wouldn't love reducing classic songs to five buttons, or Sum 41 in any form
oh, totally. I mean, the idea of reducing complex real-life tasks to simpler, push button ones for the sake of creating an enjoyable game that only seeks to mimic, not simulate said real-life task is fucking asinine. I don't even play games because FPSes don't come with an arsenal of weapons to point at the monitor, each requiring continual maintenance to prevent jamming at a critical moment, and don't even get me started on the lack of realism in fucking RPGs. Clicking on someone to talk to them? What the fuck? Am I going to start clicking at my girlfriend to tell her I want sex now?
And man, it totally distracts me from enjoying anything whatsoever the moment it's in any way associated with something popular that I'm not a fan of. I just can't wrap my head around just beating one weaker stage in a game and moving on when the rest of it is solid gold. No, if one stage features bad music, or really, anything I find to be distasteful, I return the game, burn the game store to the ground and piss on the ashes.
gosh those are pretty picky and unreasonable
i can't say i understand why you feel that way about those things
Is this double-super sarcasm?
RedShell on
Homing In Imperfectly?
Pokemans D/P: 1289 4685 0522
Yeah, what metalhead wouldn't love reducing classic songs to five buttons, or Sum 41 in any form
oh, totally. I mean, the idea of reducing complex real-life tasks to simpler, push button ones for the sake of creating an enjoyable game that only seeks to mimic, not simulate said real-life task is fucking asinine. I don't even play games because FPSes don't come with an arsenal of weapons to point at the monitor, each requiring continual maintenance to prevent jamming at a critical moment, and don't even get me started on the lack of realism in fucking RPGs. Clicking on someone to talk to them? What the fuck? Am I going to start clicking at my girlfriend to tell her I want sex now?
And man, it totally distracts me from enjoying anything whatsoever the moment it's in any way associated with something popular that I'm not a fan of. I just can't wrap my head around just beating one weaker stage in a game and moving on when the rest of it is solid gold. No, if one stage features bad music, or really, anything I find to be distasteful, I return the game, burn the game store to the ground and piss on the ashes.
gosh those are pretty picky and unreasonable
i can't say i understand why you feel that way about those things
Is this double-super sarcasm?
And actually, with the release of the album, Chuck, Sum 41 sounded more like Metallica than their pop-punk past (heh, alliteration). A bunch of their new songs would have been great for GH, much more so than the one they have.
The Half Lifes. Both of them. They're pretty tunnels, 2m wide by 15km long, that you walk down, killing everything you meet.
Not that there's anything wrong with 'walk-fight' style games. Serious Sam is awesome. Painkiller is somewhat awesome. Half Life is the same 3 marines/combines/zombies over and over again. It's a fight game with REALLY BORING FIGHTS. What's wrong with this picture?
Magic the gathering is shit. Please don't base your opinion of collectible card games off of it.
opinions lol
..but in all seriousness: Why do you feel this way? It's got depth, strategy, and a great everchanging metagame (which.. if you follow, is usually Rock/Paper/Scissors/MOTHERFUCKINGDYNAMITEOUTOFNOWHEREFROMSOMEASIANGODKID).
I can respect your opinion, just explain yourself a bit more for the sake of discussion.
They need a MtG:Online *free!* mode that you have to pay 150 bucks for or something. Of course with this free mode you couldn't ever redeem your digital cards for IRL ones.
The Half Lifes. Both of them. They're pretty tunnels, 2m wide by 15km long, that you walk down, killing everything you meet.
Not that there's anything wrong with 'walk-fight' style games. Serious Sam is awesome. Painkiller is somewhat awesome. Half Life is the same 3 marines/combines/zombies over and over again. It's a fight game with REALLY BORING FIGHTS. What's wrong with this picture?
...That you're paying no attention to the plot?
I mean, that's kind of a good chunk of the point of the Half-Life games. The plot. At least that's what I always thought.
They need a MtG:Online *free!* mode that you have to pay 150 bucks for or something. Of course with this free mode you couldn't ever redeem your digital cards for IRL ones.
That's a good idea. I stopped playing because I spent way too much money playing MTGO. The problem is I get sick of playing the same deck so I buy at mediocre prices and end up selling low then have to spend more to rebuild a new deck and it just repeats over and over again.
Spent about $1k on that stupid game and have 1 deck to show for it. Oh me and my horrible life choices.
I mean, that's kind of a good chunk of the point of the Half-Life games. The plot. At least that's what I always thought.
This 'Half Life is about the plot' thing has got to be the gamer's equivalent of Stockholm Syndrome, or something. Lock a gamer in a room with a dead rat for 10 hours and they'll start to believe it has a deep and compelling narrative.
Half Life 1 HAD no plot. Unless 'suddenly, evil gubmint spooks try to kill you!' counts a plot twist. And I'm pretty sure that was on the back of the box.
Half Life 2's plot is direct to video glurge. Its narrative is a composite of 'SCIENCE BAD!' tropes from the goddamn 1950s, and its dialogue would be laughed off the sceen if it appeared on TV. The fact that it's delivered through a bunch of extremely long and unskippable cutscenes* doesn't help, either.
*Yes, I said cutscenes. If the only interactivty you have is 'you can look at you feet if you want to', it's a cutscene.
I mean, that's kind of a good chunk of the point of the Half-Life games. The plot. At least that's what I always thought.
This 'Half Life is about the plot' thing has got to be the gamer's equivalent of Stockholm Syndrome, or something. Lock a gamer in a room with a dead rat for 10 hours and they'll start to believe it has a deep and compelling narrative.
Half Life 1 HAD no plot. Unless 'suddenly, evil gubmint spooks try to kill you!' counts a plot twist. And I'm pretty sure that was on the back of the box.
Half Life 2's plot is direct to video glurge. It's narrative is a composite of 'SCIENCE BAD!' tropes from the goddamn 1950s, and its dialogue would be laughed off the sceen if it appeared on TV. The fact that it's delivered through a bunch of extremely long and unskippable cutscenes* doesn't help, either.
*Yes, I said cutscenes. If the only interactivty you have is 'you can look at you feet if you want to', it's a cutscene.
Uh, what?
And you must be a riot at parties. "This cutscene is boring! I'm going to skip it!!!"
Not that either Half-Life is anything like as amazing as it's made out to be, sure, but the writing in 2 is far, far improved on the first game and to call it that bad is a laughable over-exaggeration. Perhaps you, you know, simply don't like narrative-based videogames?
Eight Rooks on
<AtlusParker> Sorry I'm playing Pokemon and vomiting at the same time so I'm not following the conversation in a linear fashion.
About card collecting games: Did anyone besides me ever play Pokemon Trading Card Game? That game is so addictive and fun. If only they had a bigger, more cards, more strategies, more sets version of that.
I have that game. I've only played it once briefly though. It seemed pretty good, but I haven't had an opportunity to really sit down and learn yet it.
"God" Games (Age of Empires, Stronghold, The Sims) - That's a genre I just don't find fun at all. I guess I don't have the god complex.
Age of Empires? Do you even know what a god game is?
Yeah.
I'm confused too.
Age of Empires is an RTS. Not a "God Game"
I'm not sure why everyone's confused. Sure, AoE is an RTS, so is Stronghold. You raise your armies and then have them fight other armies. Seems close enough to a god game for me.
"God" Games (Age of Empires, Stronghold, The Sims) - That's a genre I just don't find fun at all. I guess I don't have the god complex.
Age of Empires? Do you even know what a god game is?
Yeah.
I'm confused too.
Age of Empires is an RTS. Not a "God Game"
I'm not sure why everyone's confused. Sure, AoE is an RTS, so is Stronghold. You raise your armies and then have them fight other armies. Seems close enough to a god game for me.
Since when was being any kind of military commander make you a god?
I'm not sure why everyone's confused. Sure, AoE is an RTS, so is Stronghold. You raise your armies and then have them fight other armies. Seems close enough to a god game for me.
Yeah. I have to defend kupo here. The line is blurry. Especially with Bulllfrog's games. Powermonger had elements of both, and Populous: The Beginning integrated RTS-style game mechanics into a God Game.
I guess the difference is really whether you directly control the units, or whether they are relatively autonomous. But then, in Populous, you could always control the units to a certain extent anyway, and the AI in a lot of modern RTSes means that you can sit back and just observe your units as they move themselves to some extent.
Then there is The Sims, which is often considered a God Game, but is totally different again.
And you must be a riot at parties. "This cutscene is boring! I'm going to skip it!!!"
Bwuh? Cutscenes that you cannot skip are bad. That is not a controversial strement, it isn't code for whatever you just decoded it to mean. Nothing kills the enjoyment of a game more than sitting through a noninteractive seqeunce you've already seen half a dozen times.
Not that either Half-Life is anything like as amazing as it's made out to be, sure, but the writing in 2 is far, far improved on the first game and to call it that bad is a laughable over-exaggeration. Perhaps you, you know, simply don't like narrative-based videogames?
I love narrative based videogames. If a game doesn't give me even a token plot then I tend to stop halfway though and forget about it*, no matter how good the gameplay is. Sometimes I shed tears for how much potential for awesome storytelling goes to waste in videogames.
HL2 made me sad by taking the most cookie-cutter generiplot possible ('EVIL, SOULLESS SCIENCE is oppessing the Earth! Only PLUCKY, HUMANISTIC JUNKYARD SCIENCE can save us!') and then mutilating whatever virtue was left out of it by squeezing it into their 'Everything is seen from Gordon's point of view, and Gordon never speaks' schtick. Which makes for some of the most stilted character interactions in any videogame ever.
By my lights, HL1's (lack of) plot was rather better, because at no point did I feel the need to put the mouse down and say "Oh, come on!".
(*This isn't something I'm proud of, or anything. It's just the way I work.)
I never got the Metal Gear Solid series starting on PS1 and up. Every time I've tried out any of the games I've been extremely bored and feel absolutely no impetus to play on.
In an effort to reboot myself on the series I bought the Gamecube remake of MGS1, but responded exactly the same way I did to the PS1 version.
I dig the idea of Snake (though I prefer Plissken), but the rest of the game's characters (i.e. Mantis and Ocelot) seem flat and sometimes just arbitrarily silly.
Psychonauts is on the backburner at the moment. I loved the humor (Milkman especially), but the gameplay put me off. Reminded me of Banjo-Kazooie with fiddly controls and nasty loading times between areas.
I'm at the Spanish guy level at the moment, can anyone tell me if I'm near the end/should bother continuing?
In general, any game with appreciable loading times already has a strike against it from me. It takes a really great game to overcome the irritation. Been spoiled by cartridges for too long, I guess.
Psychonauts is on the backburner at the moment. I loved the humor (Milkman especially), but the gameplay put me off. Reminded me of Banjo-Kazooie with fiddly controls and nasty loading times between areas.
I'm at the Spanish guy level at the moment, can anyone tell me if I'm near the end/should bother continuing?
In general, any game with appreciable loading times already has a strike against it from me. It takes a really great game to overcome the irritation. Been spoiled by cartridges for too long, I guess.
There are three worlds accessable at that point- painter, napoleaon, and actress. You need to clear all three to get to the sanatarium level, and after that you have the final level.
So 3-5 levels away, depending on how many of those three you're cleared.
Street Fighter. The game's fighting system just never clicked with me. Granted, I'm not what you'd call an expert at fighting games, but I have managed to get fairly skillled with the Soul Calibur and Virtua Fighter series, so it's not like the concepts are completely lost on me. Just never did click with me.
I also can't understand the fanatical loyalty that some people have to the Metal Gear Solid series, the kind of loyalty that would impel someone to put down $600 for a PS3 system that is at best disappointing, and at worst an unmitigated disaster. Yes, the gameplay is pretty good, but for me it's completely marred by Hideo Kojima's preachy, ham-fisted storytelling and over-reliance on all-too-cheesy cutscenes. And the names he uses (Outer Heaven? Big Boss? WTF?) seem, as someone else said, arbitrarily silly. Ugh.
And I know the tech is awfully primative, but I couldn't play Myst for more than 15 minutes before saying "this is retarded" and firing up Marathon instead.
Robo Beat on
This is not the greatest sig in the world.
This is just a tribute.
About card collecting games: Did anyone besides me ever play Pokemon Trading Card Game? That game is so addictive and fun. If only they had a bigger, more cards, more strategies, more sets version of that.
I have that game. I've only played it once briefly though. It seemed pretty good, but I haven't had an opportunity to really sit down and learn yet it.
Sadly(?) there isn't much to learn, but what little content the game offers, it offers with that typical "catch 'em all" feel that you either love or hate. Play through it,. I'll only take a couple well-spent hours from your life.
Street Fighter. The game's fighting system just never clicked with me. Granted, I'm not what you'd call an expert at fighting games, but I have managed to get fairly skillled with the Soul Calibur and Virtua Fighter series, so it's not like the concepts are completely lost on me. Just never did click with me.
I also can't understand the fanatical loyalty that some people have to the Metal Gear Solid series, the kind of loyalty that would impel someone to put down $600 for a PS3 system that is at best disappointing, and at worst an unmitigated disaster. Yes, the gameplay is pretty good, but for me it's completely marred by Hideo Kojima's preachy, ham-fisted storytelling and over-reliance on all-too-cheesy cutscenes. And the names he uses (Outer Heaven? Big Boss? WTF?) seem, as someone else said, arbitrarily silly. Ugh.
And I know the tech is awfully primative, but I couldn't play Myst for more than 15 minutes before saying "this is retarded" and firing up Marathon instead.
That's kind of the point of Metal Gear Solid. It's ridiculous and rather silly. YOu have Big Boss and a dude who reads your mind through your memory card and a guy shooting fucking bees out of his mouth. It's not intended to be this serious, realistic, oh-my-god-this-could-really-happen game, it's supposed to be this ridiculous, unrealistic, oh-my-god-nude-Raiden-mein-eyes game.
And you must be a riot at parties. "This cutscene is boring! I'm going to skip it!!!"
Bwuh? Cutscenes that you cannot skip are bad. That is not a controversial strement, it isn't code for whatever you just decoded it to mean. Nothing kills the enjoyment of a game more than sitting through a noninteractive seqeunce you've already seen half a dozen times.
Not that either Half-Life is anything like as amazing as it's made out to be, sure, but the writing in 2 is far, far improved on the first game and to call it that bad is a laughable over-exaggeration. Perhaps you, you know, simply don't like narrative-based videogames?
I love narrative based videogames. If a game doesn't give me even a token plot then I tend to stop halfway though and forget about it*, no matter how good the gameplay is. Sometimes I shed tears for how much potential for awesome storytelling goes to waste in videogames.
HL2 made me sad by taking the most cookie-cutter generiplot possible ('EVIL, SOULLESS SCIENCE is oppessing the Earth! Only PLUCKY, HUMANISTIC JUNKYARD SCIENCE can save us!') and then mutilating whatever virtue was left out of it by squeezing it into their 'Everything is seen from Gordon's point of view, and Gordon never speaks' schtick. Which makes for some of the most stilted character interactions in any videogame ever.
By my lights, HL1's (lack of) plot was rather better, because at no point did I feel the need to put the mouse down and say "Oh, come on!".
(*This isn't something I'm proud of, or anything. It's just the way I work.)
Wow, you're like the kneejerk, soulless version of me.
I'm still baffled by the idea that at any point Half-Life 2 presents its plot in a manner even slightly akin to They Came From Planet X, and that just because the resistance use junkyard tech the game must be marketed to people who go to Burning Man or whatever. Sorry, it still just seems like you've got certain narrative elements and thematic devices you hate beyond reason, and that if any game uses them at all ever everything about its storytelling must ergo be shit. There are no lengthy speeches I remember with extended blatant subtexts about how Breen=Microsoft and Eli Vance=indie software developer, Combine=big business raping the earth and resistance=back-garden environmentalists or whatever. The little monologues about The One Free Man and so on aren't presented like a religious fundamentalist tract.
Plus people's dogged insistence that just because something doesn't light their pleasure centres up like a fucking Christmas tree it must have "appalling writing" is really starting to bug me. Metal Gear Solid would get laughed off TV. Not Valve. It's not like it'd win any prizes, or even deserve them, but you've really got a stick stuck somewhere painful if you honestly believe Christopher Paolini could do better.
And sure, "unskippable cutscenes" are bad. The quicksave is a useful little tool in that regard; you might want to look into it. I'll cut you some slack on that one - I guess Valve could have put checkpoints in just afterwards, or something. Still, pretty much never bothered me.
Eh, I'm not sure why I'm being so hostile... I guess something about your tone just really rubbed me up the wrong way. Half-Life is not worthy of every accolade it's ever received, Christ, no. But it's a polished, largely beautifully designed effort with production values miles above the norm for the medium which advanced every FPS that came after it in any number of ways. If you squeal over Timesplitters you're not going to love it. If you can't accept any less than Planescape Torment you're not going to love it. Doesn't mean you get to throw a hissy fit and kick it to the kerb.
Eight Rooks on
<AtlusParker> Sorry I'm playing Pokemon and vomiting at the same time so I'm not following the conversation in a linear fashion.
Madden
GTA
found both not just boring, but like, increeedibly boring
Counterstrike
don't like the gameplay in general
final fantasy 7
my first final fantasy was 9, and i can't play 8 or 7 because the polygons just turn me off so much, i can't get into it, sprites age much better. blade meets eye
Street Fighter. The game's fighting system just never clicked with me. Granted, I'm not what you'd call an expert at fighting games, but I have managed to get fairly skillled with the Soul Calibur and Virtua Fighter series, so it's not like the concepts are completely lost on me. Just never did click with me.
I also can't understand the fanatical loyalty that some people have to the Metal Gear Solid series, the kind of loyalty that would impel someone to put down $600 for a PS3 system that is at best disappointing, and at worst an unmitigated disaster. Yes, the gameplay is pretty good, but for me it's completely marred by Hideo Kojima's preachy, ham-fisted storytelling and over-reliance on all-too-cheesy cutscenes. And the names he uses (Outer Heaven? Big Boss? WTF?) seem, as someone else said, arbitrarily silly. Ugh.
And I know the tech is awfully primative, but I couldn't play Myst for more than 15 minutes before saying "this is retarded" and firing up Marathon instead.
That's kind of the point of Metal Gear Solid. It's ridiculous and rather silly. YOu have Big Boss and a dude who reads your mind through your memory card and a guy shooting fucking bees out of his mouth. It's not intended to be this serious, realistic, oh-my-god-this-could-really-happen game, it's supposed to be this ridiculous, unrealistic, oh-my-god-nude-Raiden-mein-eyes game.
You're probably right, but it's still to the point where I can't just ignore it and play the game anyway. For a game that is so unbelievably ridiculous, it does seem to take itself awfully seriously.
Robo Beat on
This is not the greatest sig in the world.
This is just a tribute.
Psychonauts is on the backburner at the moment. I loved the humor (Milkman especially), but the gameplay put me off. Reminded me of Banjo-Kazooie with fiddly controls and nasty loading times between areas.
I'm at the Spanish guy level at the moment, can anyone tell me if I'm near the end/should bother continuing?
In general, any game with appreciable loading times already has a strike against it from me. It takes a really great game to overcome the irritation. Been spoiled by cartridges for too long, I guess.
There are three worlds accessable at that point- painter, napoleaon, and actress. You need to clear all three to get to the sanatarium level, and after that you have the final level.
So 3-5 levels away, depending on how many of those three you're cleared.
Hmm, I cleared Napoleon and actress already. I'll finish it up one of these days.
Much as I admnire Half-Life 1 and 2, I was never terribly impressed by their plots either.
They were excellent examples of level design, but the plots were B-Movie stuff, even if well-written/acted.
HL2 didn't grab me like the first one did. I replayed the first one quite a bit, mainly just to mess with the friendly NPCs. HL2... I dunno. I've played through it twice, and every now and then I'll stick it on, but to be honest it often feels like a chore and I'll turn it off after a couple of minutes.
Also, despite my earlier complaint about San Andreas, I've reinstalled it just to see what it looks like with my shiny new 3D glasses. Solidity seems to add something, I'm just not sure what yet.
Much as I admnire Half-Life 1 and 2, I was never terribly impressed by their plots either.
They were excellent examples of level design, but the plots were B-Movie stuff, even if well-written/acted.
I've always felt that the most important part of HL wasn't the actual storyline, but the manner in which it was presented. Having the entire story unfold before your (first person) eyes was far more impressive than the "Science Goes Bad!" storyline.
And despite the near unanimous praise Oblivion got, I could never immerse myself into the game. I think the blame lies with the leveling system, as you have to pick completely counterintuitive skills to build the character you want. I shouldn't need to use a faq to build a simple thief.
I don't get: Final Fantasy, Diablo, World of Warcraft, most RPGs, Metroid Prime for the same reasons as the OP, Advance Wars and games similar to it. I'm 40 hours into FF12, my first Final Fantasy game, and I don't see what's so great about it. 40 hours and I don't feel compelled to go on at all, except for the "get more loot to make life easier" aspect. To me it's like a more violent version of The Sims. Feels like there's too much hack-n-slash, not enough dialogue and quests to guide you through all that killing. It's a visual and audio wonder, though, I guess.
I never understood the people who played Diablo 2 after finishing the campaign. Not one bit. Maybe it's a gambling thing. I don't like to gamble, so I don't like games where the primary hook is a gambling-like mechanic. I guess that goes for WOW, too.
Most RPGs and Advance Wars-type games are too... "unintuitive" for me, I guess. I need games where their rules are somehow based on the real world. They can be exagerrated, that's fine. Kinda like how it is in The Matrix. You can bend the rules, but not break them. Otherwise I just sit there playing NWN2 or Guild Wars wondering what kinda funky statistics I need to be thinking about as I fight. Don't like that too much..
Over the past few weeks I've been playing loads of critically acclaimed game of the past couple of years, from all sorts of genres. It's been very hit or miss so far. I really think game reviewers need to review like movie reviewers do. Some reviewers just don't like certain kinds of movies, and they say so. But it seems like all the game reviewers out there are chosen to review a specific genre of game. An RPG fan constantly reviews RPGs. He doesn't review the sports games or strategy games. So this really inflates the scores you see on RottenTomatoes.com, I think. Movies go from 20-80% on a regular basis there. But for video games, nearly everything is a tomato. Why? Cuz all those reviews are written by fans of the genre to begin with. Blech.
My fav game is BF2142 right now. After playing it, it was hard to play COD3 on the 360 and be impressed. Watching enemy soldiers just stand in one spot, waiting to be killed... it's just so lame. And I was a huge fan of COD1 and COD2, too. R6 Vegas and Gears of War are a lot better than COD3 in terms of AI. Not awesome but good enough for me for the moment.
So after all these years, I guess I'm still an FPS fan at the core. And it all started with Spectre and Faceball 2000. Heh.
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Yeah, I know it is more viewable in two player, but I've mainly played it in four-player mode, since that seems to be the point of the game (it being called Melee and all).
Really, it is an OK fighter in 2-player, but nothing special. It really should be brilliant fun in four-player mode, but every time we've played, people have just spent most of the game saying "Huh? What's going on? Where am I?" then asking to play Mario Kart again after the first fight.
That's why it's a sort of "I don't get it" experience. Everyone says it is great fun. I've watched videos online, and they look brilliant, so I bought the game as one of my first Gamecube purchases. I was super-excited about it.
But I really can't get into it as a single player game, and I've tried to play it as a four-player game, and it was just chaotic, and not much fun at all. Every couple of months, I will put the game in the Gamecube to see if I "finally get it", but I just can't get into it, and neither can any of the group that I regularly play four-player games with.
I'll try again tonight. I'll select Hyrule Temple, fixed-camera, turn on player names, then play vs the CPU and see how it goes. Then I'll try to con some other people into playing. This is one game I really want to like. I feel like there is something wrong with me, or I am doing something wrong in setting up the games.
I couldn't stand A Link to the Past either. Maybe playing it after Chrono Trigger, Earthbound and Secret of Mana was a bad idea, but still - you expect a game on a pedestal that high to be at least a little bit fun.
Also - GTA San Andreas. Bought and loved every other PC GTA, but San Andreas... I just can't see how making me drive for hundreds of miles in the middle of nowhere is supposed to be entertaining, y'know?
It was like Hyrule Field all over again.
Really? Hmm... well, a buddy of mine's got that, so alright, I'll give it a go. My expectations being as low as they can get for Zelda games, it'll probably be a nice surprise no matter what.
gosh those are pretty picky and unreasonable
i can't say i understand why you feel that way about those things
Is this double-super sarcasm?
Pokemans D/P: 1289 4685 0522
And actually, with the release of the album, Chuck, Sum 41 sounded more like Metallica than their pop-punk past (heh, alliteration). A bunch of their new songs would have been great for GH, much more so than the one they have.
XBL - Follow Freeman
I like it as a single player game.
I'm confused too.
Age of Empires is an RTS. Not a "God Game"
Not that there's anything wrong with 'walk-fight' style games. Serious Sam is awesome. Painkiller is somewhat awesome. Half Life is the same 3 marines/combines/zombies over and over again. It's a fight game with REALLY BORING FIGHTS. What's wrong with this picture?
opinions lol
..but in all seriousness: Why do you feel this way? It's got depth, strategy, and a great everchanging metagame (which.. if you follow, is usually Rock/Paper/Scissors/MOTHERFUCKINGDYNAMITEOUTOFNOWHEREFROMSOMEASIANGODKID).
I can respect your opinion, just explain yourself a bit more for the sake of discussion.
They need a MtG:Online *free!* mode that you have to pay 150 bucks for or something. Of course with this free mode you couldn't ever redeem your digital cards for IRL ones.
...That you're paying no attention to the plot?
I mean, that's kind of a good chunk of the point of the Half-Life games. The plot. At least that's what I always thought.
That's a good idea. I stopped playing because I spent way too much money playing MTGO. The problem is I get sick of playing the same deck so I buy at mediocre prices and end up selling low then have to spend more to rebuild a new deck and it just repeats over and over again.
Spent about $1k on that stupid game and have 1 deck to show for it. Oh me and my horrible life choices.
This 'Half Life is about the plot' thing has got to be the gamer's equivalent of Stockholm Syndrome, or something. Lock a gamer in a room with a dead rat for 10 hours and they'll start to believe it has a deep and compelling narrative.
Half Life 1 HAD no plot. Unless 'suddenly, evil gubmint spooks try to kill you!' counts a plot twist. And I'm pretty sure that was on the back of the box.
Half Life 2's plot is direct to video glurge. Its narrative is a composite of 'SCIENCE BAD!' tropes from the goddamn 1950s, and its dialogue would be laughed off the sceen if it appeared on TV. The fact that it's delivered through a bunch of extremely long and unskippable cutscenes* doesn't help, either.
*Yes, I said cutscenes. If the only interactivty you have is 'you can look at you feet if you want to', it's a cutscene.
Uh, what?
And you must be a riot at parties. "This cutscene is boring! I'm going to skip it!!!"
Not that either Half-Life is anything like as amazing as it's made out to be, sure, but the writing in 2 is far, far improved on the first game and to call it that bad is a laughable over-exaggeration. Perhaps you, you know, simply don't like narrative-based videogames?
Read my book. (It has a robot in it.)
I have that game. I've only played it once briefly though. It seemed pretty good, but I haven't had an opportunity to really sit down and learn yet it.
I'm not sure why everyone's confused. Sure, AoE is an RTS, so is Stronghold. You raise your armies and then have them fight other armies. Seems close enough to a god game for me.
SO BAD.
I was spotted by basically every guard in MGS3 and had to slay them all.
I'm also having trouble with Double Agent for the Wii
Since when was being any kind of military commander make you a god?
Yeah. I have to defend kupo here. The line is blurry. Especially with Bulllfrog's games. Powermonger had elements of both, and Populous: The Beginning integrated RTS-style game mechanics into a God Game.
I guess the difference is really whether you directly control the units, or whether they are relatively autonomous. But then, in Populous, you could always control the units to a certain extent anyway, and the AI in a lot of modern RTSes means that you can sit back and just observe your units as they move themselves to some extent.
Then there is The Sims, which is often considered a God Game, but is totally different again.
Bwuh? Cutscenes that you cannot skip are bad. That is not a controversial strement, it isn't code for whatever you just decoded it to mean. Nothing kills the enjoyment of a game more than sitting through a noninteractive seqeunce you've already seen half a dozen times.
I love narrative based videogames. If a game doesn't give me even a token plot then I tend to stop halfway though and forget about it*, no matter how good the gameplay is. Sometimes I shed tears for how much potential for awesome storytelling goes to waste in videogames.
HL2 made me sad by taking the most cookie-cutter generiplot possible ('EVIL, SOULLESS SCIENCE is oppessing the Earth! Only PLUCKY, HUMANISTIC JUNKYARD SCIENCE can save us!') and then mutilating whatever virtue was left out of it by squeezing it into their 'Everything is seen from Gordon's point of view, and Gordon never speaks' schtick. Which makes for some of the most stilted character interactions in any videogame ever.
By my lights, HL1's (lack of) plot was rather better, because at no point did I feel the need to put the mouse down and say "Oh, come on!".
(*This isn't something I'm proud of, or anything. It's just the way I work.)
In an effort to reboot myself on the series I bought the Gamecube remake of MGS1, but responded exactly the same way I did to the PS1 version.
I dig the idea of Snake (though I prefer Plissken), but the rest of the game's characters (i.e. Mantis and Ocelot) seem flat and sometimes just arbitrarily silly.
I'm at the Spanish guy level at the moment, can anyone tell me if I'm near the end/should bother continuing?
In general, any game with appreciable loading times already has a strike against it from me. It takes a really great game to overcome the irritation. Been spoiled by cartridges for too long, I guess.
There are three worlds accessable at that point- painter, napoleaon, and actress. You need to clear all three to get to the sanatarium level, and after that you have the final level.
So 3-5 levels away, depending on how many of those three you're cleared.
I also can't understand the fanatical loyalty that some people have to the Metal Gear Solid series, the kind of loyalty that would impel someone to put down $600 for a PS3 system that is at best disappointing, and at worst an unmitigated disaster. Yes, the gameplay is pretty good, but for me it's completely marred by Hideo Kojima's preachy, ham-fisted storytelling and over-reliance on all-too-cheesy cutscenes. And the names he uses (Outer Heaven? Big Boss? WTF?) seem, as someone else said, arbitrarily silly. Ugh.
And I know the tech is awfully primative, but I couldn't play Myst for more than 15 minutes before saying "this is retarded" and firing up Marathon instead.
This is just a tribute.
Sadly(?) there isn't much to learn, but what little content the game offers, it offers with that typical "catch 'em all" feel that you either love or hate. Play through it,. I'll only take a couple well-spent hours from your life.
PS:
That's kind of the point of Metal Gear Solid. It's ridiculous and rather silly. YOu have Big Boss and a dude who reads your mind through your memory card and a guy shooting fucking bees out of his mouth. It's not intended to be this serious, realistic, oh-my-god-this-could-really-happen game, it's supposed to be this ridiculous, unrealistic, oh-my-god-nude-Raiden-mein-eyes game.
Wow, you're like the kneejerk, soulless version of me.
I'm still baffled by the idea that at any point Half-Life 2 presents its plot in a manner even slightly akin to They Came From Planet X, and that just because the resistance use junkyard tech the game must be marketed to people who go to Burning Man or whatever. Sorry, it still just seems like you've got certain narrative elements and thematic devices you hate beyond reason, and that if any game uses them at all ever everything about its storytelling must ergo be shit. There are no lengthy speeches I remember with extended blatant subtexts about how Breen=Microsoft and Eli Vance=indie software developer, Combine=big business raping the earth and resistance=back-garden environmentalists or whatever. The little monologues about The One Free Man and so on aren't presented like a religious fundamentalist tract.
Plus people's dogged insistence that just because something doesn't light their pleasure centres up like a fucking Christmas tree it must have "appalling writing" is really starting to bug me. Metal Gear Solid would get laughed off TV. Not Valve. It's not like it'd win any prizes, or even deserve them, but you've really got a stick stuck somewhere painful if you honestly believe Christopher Paolini could do better.
And sure, "unskippable cutscenes" are bad. The quicksave is a useful little tool in that regard; you might want to look into it. I'll cut you some slack on that one - I guess Valve could have put checkpoints in just afterwards, or something. Still, pretty much never bothered me.
Eh, I'm not sure why I'm being so hostile... I guess something about your tone just really rubbed me up the wrong way. Half-Life is not worthy of every accolade it's ever received, Christ, no. But it's a polished, largely beautifully designed effort with production values miles above the norm for the medium which advanced every FPS that came after it in any number of ways. If you squeal over Timesplitters you're not going to love it. If you can't accept any less than Planescape Torment you're not going to love it. Doesn't mean you get to throw a hissy fit and kick it to the kerb.
Read my book. (It has a robot in it.)
GTA
found both not just boring, but like, increeedibly boring
Counterstrike
don't like the gameplay in general
final fantasy 7
my first final fantasy was 9, and i can't play 8 or 7 because the polygons just turn me off so much, i can't get into it, sprites age much better. blade meets eye
You're probably right, but it's still to the point where I can't just ignore it and play the game anyway. For a game that is so unbelievably ridiculous, it does seem to take itself awfully seriously.
This is just a tribute.
They were excellent examples of level design, but the plots were B-Movie stuff, even if well-written/acted.
Also, despite my earlier complaint about San Andreas, I've reinstalled it just to see what it looks like with my shiny new 3D glasses. Solidity seems to add something, I'm just not sure what yet.
And despite the near unanimous praise Oblivion got, I could never immerse myself into the game. I think the blame lies with the leveling system, as you have to pick completely counterintuitive skills to build the character you want. I shouldn't need to use a faq to build a simple thief.
I never understood the people who played Diablo 2 after finishing the campaign. Not one bit. Maybe it's a gambling thing. I don't like to gamble, so I don't like games where the primary hook is a gambling-like mechanic. I guess that goes for WOW, too.
Most RPGs and Advance Wars-type games are too... "unintuitive" for me, I guess. I need games where their rules are somehow based on the real world. They can be exagerrated, that's fine. Kinda like how it is in The Matrix. You can bend the rules, but not break them. Otherwise I just sit there playing NWN2 or Guild Wars wondering what kinda funky statistics I need to be thinking about as I fight. Don't like that too much..
Over the past few weeks I've been playing loads of critically acclaimed game of the past couple of years, from all sorts of genres. It's been very hit or miss so far. I really think game reviewers need to review like movie reviewers do. Some reviewers just don't like certain kinds of movies, and they say so. But it seems like all the game reviewers out there are chosen to review a specific genre of game. An RPG fan constantly reviews RPGs. He doesn't review the sports games or strategy games. So this really inflates the scores you see on RottenTomatoes.com, I think. Movies go from 20-80% on a regular basis there. But for video games, nearly everything is a tomato. Why? Cuz all those reviews are written by fans of the genre to begin with. Blech.
My fav game is BF2142 right now. After playing it, it was hard to play COD3 on the 360 and be impressed. Watching enemy soldiers just stand in one spot, waiting to be killed... it's just so lame. And I was a huge fan of COD1 and COD2, too. R6 Vegas and Gears of War are a lot better than COD3 in terms of AI. Not awesome but good enough for me for the moment.
So after all these years, I guess I'm still an FPS fan at the core. And it all started with Spectre and Faceball 2000. Heh.