I am ready for three souls games within the span of a year
I'm actually a lot more excited about this and bloodborne because 1 is a different developer's take on the idea which we haven't really seen, and one is very stylistically different
It would be nice if more modern games integrated their environments with the mechanics instead of guiding you through a theme park
You don't need to get lost but there are smoother ways to facilitate that than locking the doors behind you, gone home was really good at subtly leading you through a path in a big exploration zone
While I agree, that article is pretty clearly taking the stance that the ability to go anywhere at your whim is the goal of open game design, and there are other ways to get there
I think the one real point in the article is that the "classic" games are big on giving you a variety of tools through game mechanics and then letting you "figure it out yourself". So while Mass Effect 3 might have a dialogue option to avoid fighting some duders, one of the games the author likes would instead give you the option to sneak past / distract / fuck it just sprint through them you got plenty of stimpacks.
To a certain degree this is actually a matter of presentation more than it is one of mechanics. If you are given a little dialogue window where one option is "2) SNEAK THROUGH THE VENTILATION SYSTEM" and that skips a bunch of combat, it technically isn't all that different from going through one of the ubiquitous crouching-man-sized-ducts in Deus Ex. The key difference is that one is presented as the developer railroading you, and the other is presented as something you found yourself, even though clearly the developer placed it there for you to find.
To use a more-modern example, the author would almost certainly (unless they're totally blinded by rose-colored glasses) love the Predator sections of the Arkham games, because they're exactly the sort of sandbox he's a fan of. He might take some offense to the way they're slotted into the game ("you must knock out everybody in this room before proceeding") but taken on their own they're a sandbox of consistent actors that you are given a variety of tools for dealing with. And really, saying "we need more games like the Predator segments of the Arkham games" is not a particularly stupid statement.
Yes I'm getting into taste territory here, but let's look at it objectively. Repetitive shoot em ups that merely consist of dice rolls and numbers going up. RPGs with fenced off wax-museum towns. Meticulously painted backdrops that belie the lack of depth. Or alternatively, pixel art and chiptunes.
On the surface these games have all the trappings of the classic gaming age, remade in widescreen HD or quirky indie glory, but they lack lasting power once you stop playing. Far from evolving the real classics, of which there are admittedly not actually that many, we've regressed and turned them into caricatures of themselves, mistaking technical limitations for a lack of ambition.
which makes a lot of sense when you look at his next paragraph:
Rather, there's a reason people continue to cite the same few classics.
Fallout, Freespace, Outcast, Master of Orion, Rollercoaster Tycoon, System Shock, Thief and Torment are still high points in gaming, and it isn't because they were/weren't Art, or are/aren't crappy by modern standards.
To this day, each of those games presents an understandable, flexible sandbox.
Which is pretty obviously nonsense. The reason people cite those games as "classics" is because those are the games people played when they were growing up. He's trying to claim that modern games are just trying to emulate the sandboxes of classic games (and failing), but that's blatantly false.
It was a pretty traditional space-flight sim in the vein of Tie Fighter.
It just happened to be a really fucking good space-flight sim that was actually accessible to more than just a crazy hardcore audience (yes, I'm glaring at you, Evochron Mercenary and X3).
My reverend totally talked about gamergate this week
That was fun
dare I ask where he fell on the issue
It was during a sermon about self-forgiveness and how you first have to acknowledge your flaws before you can forgive them, and the temptation to blame those flaws on others
Yes I'm getting into taste territory here, but let's look at it objectively. Repetitive shoot em ups that merely consist of dice rolls and numbers going up. RPGs with fenced off wax-museum towns. Meticulously painted backdrops that belie the lack of depth. Or alternatively, pixel art and chiptunes.
On the surface these games have all the trappings of the classic gaming age, remade in widescreen HD or quirky indie glory, but they lack lasting power once you stop playing. Far from evolving the real classics, of which there are admittedly not actually that many, we've regressed and turned them into caricatures of themselves, mistaking technical limitations for a lack of ambition.
which makes a lot of sense when you look at his next paragraph:
Rather, there's a reason people continue to cite the same few classics.
Fallout, Freespace, Outcast, Master of Orion, Rollercoaster Tycoon, System Shock, Thief and Torment are still high points in gaming, and it isn't because they were/weren't Art, or are/aren't crappy by modern standards.
To this day, each of those games presents an understandable, flexible sandbox.
Which is pretty obviously nonsense. The reason people cite those games as "classics" is because those are the games people played when they were growing up. He's trying to claim that modern games are just trying to emulate the sandboxes of classic games (and failing), but that's blatantly false.
Talking in absolutes is rarely correct, which is another issue with the article. You can't say that every old game that people liked was liked solely because of nostalgia, and had no unique qualities of its own. Similarly, the article's author shouldn't be saying "every single game that seems to pander to nostalgia in any way is missing the point entirely" because that's also stupid. The article's about one specific style of game that the author likes and feels isn't well-enough represented in modern games. The article is also poorly-researched because there are at least a few modern examples that do fit the bill.
I guess the article on the whole isn't very good but I agree with the one point I'm projecting onto it.
My reverend totally talked about gamergate this week
That was fun
dare I ask where he fell on the issue
It was during a sermon about self-forgiveness and how you first have to acknowledge your flaws before you can forgive them, and the temptation to blame those flaws on others
honestly based on the particular delusions gamergaters have I could still see that falling on either side
The Dark Souls clone game looks neat but it is.doing some things I am not crazy about
The "souls" you leave behind after dying gradually become less and less the longer it takes to retrieve them(although, they also provide a buff when you are in range without picking them up that increases your stats, which is a really cool idea)
Bosses award upgraded gear if you.meet certain criteria. The first.boss gives you a better sword if you kill it without taking any damage.
I will still be interested in reading a review but it sort of sounds like a game by Dark Souls fans who only see the "hardcore" aspect of the series, and not the way it is very tightly tuned to train you to succeed as you play it.
I think one of the biggest problems with an angry conservative movement like this is that they really don't understand that it's about the women and not about anything else. Because inside they're saying to themselves, "I don't hate Anita Sarkeesian because she's a woman! I hate her because she's a fake and says terrible lies and is trying to control the gaming industry!" They really truly believe that, and they think that when you say anything to the contrary that it's you who is hung up on gender. I remember all this perfectly well from the days that I was that person.
And it's such an incredibly difficult thing to explain, because of it's complexity. You can say to them, "but you didn't care when this other critic tried to change the gaming industry because of his criticism" or "But here is this other critic who exaggerated claims who you don't have a death vendetta against" and so on, and there's always an excuse that seems so reasonable to the person making it.
I don't even know how you change people's minds on this stuff, when the mere mention of gender politics makes certain people, men and women, feel threatened enough that they have to retaliate.
That's one of the main issues I have encountered with people who dislike Sarkeesian (or Gone Home, or Depression Quest, or anything else in their comfort zone of "video games" but well outside their actual comfort zone).
They don't consciously have anything directly against them, but there is an unconscious discomfort, so they look for reasons to explain why they don't like it - it's not that Sarkeesian is a woman, it's that she's wrong and using poor examples!
And you can't say "well actually I'm pretty sure you just don't like her because she is a woman offering feminist critique" because that had really not even consciously occurred to them.
Obviously this is not applicable in every case, but I think it is 100% important to recognize when this is the case, because while you can easily look at this person and say "well, you are treating this female critic way differently than you treat this male critic, you're a misogynist," that doesn't do anything but put them on the defensive and look for reasons why they aren't a misogynist and are perfectly reasonable in disliking the woman. You just have to point out the overarching pattern, and hope they are willing to have the self-reflection to look at why there is a gender-based discrepancy in their behavior.
Thank you for this insight. I hadn't quite thought about it in those terms, but you are totally right. I'm not sure what this means for me or anyone else who feels the need to respond to people in that position, though. I tried reason to no avail. More recently I've tried profanity, which is more satisfying but not necessarily more effective, although at least when you do that they don't just laugh at you any more.
I *do* feel like I need to speak up, or at least that someone should. I don't like seeing my favorite gaming forums filled up with hate, especially when that hates sits unchallenged. Someone ought to challenge it, so that the next person who comes along and reads the hate at least knows that not everyone is okay with it. But it's tough to be that person sometimes. I guess at the end of the day I'm not really doing it for that guy who doesn't get it, I'm doing it for everyone who might ever read it so they have another viewpoint to read. Which probably indicates that profanity is the wrong move after all, if only reasonable people are swayable (is that a word?) anyway.
So I guess I answered my own question, or maybe you answered it before you heard it. Anyway, thanks!
Yes I'm getting into taste territory here, but let's look at it objectively. Repetitive shoot em ups that merely consist of dice rolls and numbers going up. RPGs with fenced off wax-museum towns. Meticulously painted backdrops that belie the lack of depth. Or alternatively, pixel art and chiptunes.
On the surface these games have all the trappings of the classic gaming age, remade in widescreen HD or quirky indie glory, but they lack lasting power once you stop playing. Far from evolving the real classics, of which there are admittedly not actually that many, we've regressed and turned them into caricatures of themselves, mistaking technical limitations for a lack of ambition.
which makes a lot of sense when you look at his next paragraph:
Rather, there's a reason people continue to cite the same few classics.
Fallout, Freespace, Outcast, Master of Orion, Rollercoaster Tycoon, System Shock, Thief and Torment are still high points in gaming, and it isn't because they were/weren't Art, or are/aren't crappy by modern standards.
To this day, each of those games presents an understandable, flexible sandbox.
Which is pretty obviously nonsense. The reason people cite those games as "classics" is because those are the games people played when they were growing up. He's trying to claim that modern games are just trying to emulate the sandboxes of classic games (and failing), but that's blatantly false.
I will remember Torment and Fallout for the same reason that I will remember Transistor and Bastion. They told stories, they were good stories, told well enough that I want to hold them in my mind. They made me feel.
Yes I'm getting into taste territory here, but let's look at it objectively. Repetitive shoot em ups that merely consist of dice rolls and numbers going up. RPGs with fenced off wax-museum towns. Meticulously painted backdrops that belie the lack of depth. Or alternatively, pixel art and chiptunes.
On the surface these games have all the trappings of the classic gaming age, remade in widescreen HD or quirky indie glory, but they lack lasting power once you stop playing. Far from evolving the real classics, of which there are admittedly not actually that many, we've regressed and turned them into caricatures of themselves, mistaking technical limitations for a lack of ambition.
which makes a lot of sense when you look at his next paragraph:
Rather, there's a reason people continue to cite the same few classics.
Fallout, Freespace, Outcast, Master of Orion, Rollercoaster Tycoon, System Shock, Thief and Torment are still high points in gaming, and it isn't because they were/weren't Art, or are/aren't crappy by modern standards.
To this day, each of those games presents an understandable, flexible sandbox.
Which is pretty obviously nonsense. The reason people cite those games as "classics" is because those are the games people played when they were growing up. He's trying to claim that modern games are just trying to emulate the sandboxes of classic games (and failing), but that's blatantly false.
I will remember Torment and Fallout for the same reason that I will remember Transistor and Bastion. They told stories, they were good stories, told well enough that I want to hold them in my mind. They made me feel.
Oh right, forgot to mention: the author citing Torment is ridiculous, since it in no way whatsoever matches what he wants. It's a linear story with a copious amount of sidequests. It even pulls the "door locks behind you" thing that he laid against Mass Effect 3. The quality of the game rests pretty much solely on the quality of its writing (which includes plot, worldbuilding, etc).
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it seems like it's diverged more from the alpha build, like the bit at 5:00 is pretty much exactly a scene from DS1
I'm actually a lot more excited about this and bloodborne because 1 is a different developer's take on the idea which we haven't really seen, and one is very stylistically different
There is like zero weight to every hit
It's on sale as well.
I think the one real point in the article is that the "classic" games are big on giving you a variety of tools through game mechanics and then letting you "figure it out yourself". So while Mass Effect 3 might have a dialogue option to avoid fighting some duders, one of the games the author likes would instead give you the option to sneak past / distract / fuck it just sprint through them you got plenty of stimpacks.
To a certain degree this is actually a matter of presentation more than it is one of mechanics. If you are given a little dialogue window where one option is "2) SNEAK THROUGH THE VENTILATION SYSTEM" and that skips a bunch of combat, it technically isn't all that different from going through one of the ubiquitous crouching-man-sized-ducts in Deus Ex. The key difference is that one is presented as the developer railroading you, and the other is presented as something you found yourself, even though clearly the developer placed it there for you to find.
To use a more-modern example, the author would almost certainly (unless they're totally blinded by rose-colored glasses) love the Predator sections of the Arkham games, because they're exactly the sort of sandbox he's a fan of. He might take some offense to the way they're slotted into the game ("you must knock out everybody in this room before proceeding") but taken on their own they're a sandbox of consistent actors that you are given a variety of tools for dealing with. And really, saying "we need more games like the Predator segments of the Arkham games" is not a particularly stupid statement.
which makes a lot of sense when you look at his next paragraph:
Which is pretty obviously nonsense. The reason people cite those games as "classics" is because those are the games people played when they were growing up. He's trying to claim that modern games are just trying to emulate the sandboxes of classic games (and failing), but that's blatantly false.
My Steam
dare I ask where he fell on the issue
I know I'm in the minority, but I dig JS's shtick .
It was a pretty traditional space-flight sim in the vein of Tie Fighter.
It just happened to be a really fucking good space-flight sim that was actually accessible to more than just a crazy hardcore audience (yes, I'm glaring at you, Evochron Mercenary and X3).
It was during a sermon about self-forgiveness and how you first have to acknowledge your flaws before you can forgive them, and the temptation to blame those flaws on others
As in Zoe should confess all her flaws and 4chan would just forgive.her?
Talking in absolutes is rarely correct, which is another issue with the article. You can't say that every old game that people liked was liked solely because of nostalgia, and had no unique qualities of its own. Similarly, the article's author shouldn't be saying "every single game that seems to pander to nostalgia in any way is missing the point entirely" because that's also stupid. The article's about one specific style of game that the author likes and feels isn't well-enough represented in modern games. The article is also poorly-researched because there are at least a few modern examples that do fit the bill.
I guess the article on the whole isn't very good but I agree with the one point I'm projecting onto it.
You're all making less and less sense the more you drag this out.
Steam Switch FC: 2799-7909-4852
Hah I was responding the sermon that Chincy was talking about
Wrong quote.
No, other way
Essentially everyone has flaws, we grow up in a flawed society. You have to admit those flaws (sexim in this case) instead of blaming them on others
honestly based on the particular delusions gamergaters have I could still see that falling on either side
Will I finally get to actually play it????
Woo, that was actually way nicer than I expected.
Props to your reverend for both knowing about the issue and knowing not to be a dick.
I'm not trying to make light of the situation but I am reminded how much I love this comic
The "souls" you leave behind after dying gradually become less and less the longer it takes to retrieve them(although, they also provide a buff when you are in range without picking them up that increases your stats, which is a really cool idea)
Bosses award upgraded gear if you.meet certain criteria. The first.boss gives you a better sword if you kill it without taking any damage.
I will still be interested in reading a review but it sort of sounds like a game by Dark Souls fans who only see the "hardcore" aspect of the series, and not the way it is very tightly tuned to train you to succeed as you play it.
I grabbed the Steamworld key, thanks dude. I think the Hammerwatch key got used yesterday though.
Unless that's a newer one.
Thank you for this insight. I hadn't quite thought about it in those terms, but you are totally right. I'm not sure what this means for me or anyone else who feels the need to respond to people in that position, though. I tried reason to no avail. More recently I've tried profanity, which is more satisfying but not necessarily more effective, although at least when you do that they don't just laugh at you any more.
I *do* feel like I need to speak up, or at least that someone should. I don't like seeing my favorite gaming forums filled up with hate, especially when that hates sits unchallenged. Someone ought to challenge it, so that the next person who comes along and reads the hate at least knows that not everyone is okay with it. But it's tough to be that person sometimes. I guess at the end of the day I'm not really doing it for that guy who doesn't get it, I'm doing it for everyone who might ever read it so they have another viewpoint to read. Which probably indicates that profanity is the wrong move after all, if only reasonable people are swayable (is that a word?) anyway.
So I guess I answered my own question, or maybe you answered it before you heard it. Anyway, thanks!
the culmination of a meme on the BoI subreddit
ah, man
Terrible Swift Sword was the PA guild I played in
memorieees
I will remember Torment and Fallout for the same reason that I will remember Transistor and Bastion. They told stories, they were good stories, told well enough that I want to hold them in my mind. They made me feel.
It isn't a meme if it ever truly culminates.
A true meme must be ground into your brain ages after it stops being funny
That's the next step, this is the peak, as good as it gets, now we being the process of driving it back down into the ground it came from
Oh right, forgot to mention: the author citing Torment is ridiculous, since it in no way whatsoever matches what he wants. It's a linear story with a copious amount of sidequests. It even pulls the "door locks behind you" thing that he laid against Mass Effect 3. The quality of the game rests pretty much solely on the quality of its writing (which includes plot, worldbuilding, etc).
Valve is completely redesigning the Steam store
Steam