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Penny Arcade - PATV - First 15 – Tower Of Guns
Dog
Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
Penny Arcade - PATV - First 15 – Tower Of Guns
Gabe and Tycho play a game for 15 minutes and then judge it accordingly. This week they play Tower Of Guns.
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I love how this video ended. That was a great little mini-discussion on how different people approach gaming and entertainment/art as a whole.
Firstly, I absolutely believe that controls for a game TOTALLY DO change your enjoyment of a game. Think of your favorite Mario game. Now think about having to play it with a DDR pad, or only a mouse. This is partly what's happening here. It's not that consoles aren't meant for FPSes (there's tons of great ones) but this specific game does none of the changes/adjustment that a console FPS needs in order to feel comfortable to play on a console. It's a very twitchy, made-for-pc game and its exactly cloned on PS4.
Secondly, Tower of Guns is really bad at explaining what it's about in a quick manner. There's no tutorial, no premise, no description of ANYTHING, you start off with only 2 weapons (and the one you played is the most BLAND GUN EVER), and 2 boring perks. Plus the first level is very boring, too long, has no tutorialization of any sort, and barely gives you any power-up, which are a big part of this game. Which leads me to...
Thirdly, the premise of this game isn't bad ! It's meant to be an FPS Rogue-like mixed with some bullet hell gameplay. You go around collecting different power ups and the rooms change, forcing you to adapt your play to your situation. You'll get better, unlock more stuff as you go along which keeps the game fresh and exciting to combine possibilities and you'll improve your starting conditions, as in a game like Rogue Legacy. But, as in my 2nd point, the game is terrible at starting you off, so you only have a boring, basic range of stuff to choose from, so it barely feels like it's a roguelike at all, thus you don't get excited for the possibility of finding new powerups if you only play the early game.
Lastly, the fantasy of this game is, imo, a pretty classic one. What Tower of Guns is aiming for is that hallway scene in The Matrix. You're running around, fast like hell, dodging bullets and taking down foes like a badass in a seemingly-impossible scenario. But since the start is boring, you don't feel that way. The second level already starts making this point much clearer. In the first level, you only somewhat get that with the bosses, but they mostly fire at random, not at you so you don't really notice or care.
I hope this clears it up for you. I think the game somewhat fails at what it attempts to do, but if you power through an early stage you can get into a state of unlocks/familiarity with the system where you enjoy the core loop more. I personally don't have as much beef with the art as you do but I agree it's not great. Finally, here's a video of someone playing and enjoying the game:
"hard work"
He's not a reviewer and this isn't a review
You're right, they probably clicked the "make game" button.
He's never said he was a reviewer.
You're just watching some dude play a game.
That's not a review.
Really I just don't know what people are expecting. It's like watching a streamer if you don't enjoy their personality. Why watch it? You don't have to. That's all this is. If you enjoy Mike and Jerry playing games together and being Mike and Jerry then watch this, if not don't. Plenty of people, like me, find it entertaining. This is Mike's personality. This is what it's always been.
Honestly this First15 didn't tell me much about what the guys think of the game, it just made Mike look like an asshole. Seriously though, get a damned mouse and play this thing on the platform it was clearly intended to occupy.
So you're tired of Mike shitting on games on his free video game stream, so you come in here and shit on Mike's free video game stream.
Thanks, I needed that. It's always hard to find the humor in Mondays.
Considering the size of PAs audience, First 15 doesn't exactly rake in the views. I'm offering the criticism that if Mike put in the effort to try and enjoy a game for more than 30 seconds, it may be a more enjoyable experience for everyone. As it stands, even Jerry seems super uncomfortable by Mike acting like someone's work is literally worthless and as a creator I feel like he'd be more open minded.
But hey, if you find it enjoyable it's cool that you don't agree with me.
Thankfully, it was a free offering on PS+ so I didn't have to spend money on it! I like the idea of the game, but the execution is pretty piss poor.
So he pretty quickly had all he needed to know he didn't like the game.
Maybe you're new to watching Mike. If so this is how he does things and is very open about that. They even discuss it a bit at the end of this episode. He isn't interested in looking for the good. He has plenty of other stuff to entertain himself and if a game doesn't make a case for itself pretty quickly he's out.
He's very driven by the way things look and right from the get go it looked like game made by children to him.
Gabe seems invested in the idea that consoles are superior to PCs because of gatekeeping that, as others have pointed out, simply doesn't exist. Sony will happily take your money if you want to publish a crap game. I've never linked Sony with quality control or artistic integrity or gatekeeping of any sort.
And Gabe seems to have this hostility towards "indy crap" which I found really odd since most of the stuff on First 15 is "indy crap." And he's liked enough of it that I didn't detect this bias before. I have bought indy titles, like Dub Wars and Slain, because they were featured on First 15.
It wasn't his hostility towards a bad game that threw me off. It was this blanket, elitist hostility towards indy games and PC games that threw me off. Comparing this game with AAA titles like Overwatch, Destiny, or Titanfall 2, which are not just AAA titles but AAA titles that were wildly successful instead of mediocre or crap, just didn't make sense.
I think that's why Tycho started explaining what he is looking for when he plays games. It's why Tycho doing First 15 and then Tycho Tries makes sense: He's always looking for that beauty. Gabe's comments in this video had me wondering why he does First 15 since that is 15 fewer minutes he has to play Overwatch or Destiny.
I mostly thought he was just in a bad mood after medical stuff.
He has things against PC games for many reasons that he has discussed before. Yes he prefers consoles. He's not actually elitist about it. Try to remember when watching these bits you are watching a guy interact with his best friend. He's not saying things to review a game or give deep thought to it. He's just saying off the cuff remarks to a person who knows him well and there happens to be a camera there.
If you don't get a friend that you act silly with, or over the top with, or whatever, just to crack them up - GET ONE.
Equating playing this game with cutting? Playing this means you need to be on meds? That's straight-up victimizing the wrong people.
It's called jokes.
Do you read the PA comics?
This is the kind of humor they do.
Why are people still surprised about this stuff?
It's just the world we live in now =/
Or even not understand that they are jokes.
1) I love that this devolved into a a basic philosophical dichotomy. I've never seen the "one in the hand, two in the bush" conundrum explained quite this well.
2) Folks, Mike was sick and probably in a pretty shitty mood. The joke was in poor taste, but we *all* have bad days. But it would be narrow minded, at best, to judge the entirety of one persons character on one errant commentary.
Lest we forget, he is *on* medication (something they've discussed at great length at PAX and in the comics), and he see's a psychologist himself. He's always spoken about psychological issues in candid terms, and has always felt free to make jokes about it (though some of them, clearly, work better than others.) I personally think this helps to *normalize* the issue. As someone who is on meds themselves, I really appreciate that Mike doesn't treat the topic as sacrosanct.
I'm not sure where this comment comes from. I don't think anyone is arguing whether or not these are jokes. Some people just think they're hateful, weirdly spiteful jokes rather than funny ones.
I've seen the other First 15s, I've seen Mike on stage dozens of times at PAX, as well as almost all the other video content they've put out. All that being said, I don't feel like the argument "this is just Mikes personality" holds much weight. He's usually really pleasant and witty and the times something does piss him off I can generally see his side of it. This felt out of nowhere.
I will concede that I hadn't taken his condition into consideration. That's the one argument that makes a lot of sense to me.
On that note, I hope he's feeling better.
I think you're confusing the idea with the "this is Mike's personality". Those saying it aren't saying it's unpleasant because they are seeing it in a different light. There was nothing unpleasant about it to me. Just him being his funny normal self when dealing with something he doesn't like.
That doesn't stop him from being a pleasant person but even in talking about games he calls stuff shit and makes fun of the art in things all the time. It's very common of him. When the other guy was replacing him on First 15 they even made jokes about how now he had to hate things and make mean comments because he was taking Mike's place. If that weren't part of Mike's personality why would that joke have even happened?
Because in the Mike/Jerry dynamic, Mike has a reputation for being the more abrasive one and Tycho is generally more forgiving. It's a classic dynamic and it's a huge part as to why PA has been successful all these years. So when someone gets brought on to fill Mikes shoes, the obvious joke is "I guess I have to be the angry guy," because the other role is already filled.
But this (to me, because we're apparently just arguing opinions, now) was a departure from Mike's regular formula, in which the things he says are actually witty and his jokes don't seem mean spirited as much as they seem like criticisms of whats actually happening. This time he was just ranting "this is trash," "this shouldn't have even made it to the store," "this was a student project." None of which really even say what he doesn't like about the game. These jokes felt mean and my point is that Mike doesn't normally come off as mean to me.
Now, you're welcome to reply with "they didn't feel mean to me," and that's cool. I'm not trying to tell you how to feel about this. If anything, you're already out on top because you got something you enjoyed and I got something that just kind of made me feel bad for the developers.