Confession time: I've never actually played an adventure game as it was "meant to", figuring out the puzzles myself. Always walkthroughs.
If YouTube had somehow existed in the 80s and 90s, I would have consumed (i.e., watched) every single classic Sierra and LucasArts adventure as passive media experiences.
Oh god, I can't even imagine playing the old Sierra games without at least the option of something like UHS. So many dumb game overs, at least with lucasarts games you could muddle through until you solved it
Confession time: I've never actually played an adventure game as it was "meant to", figuring out the puzzles myself. Always walkthroughs.
If YouTube had somehow existed in the 80s and 90s, I would have consumed (i.e., watched) every single classic Sierra and LucasArts adventure as passive media experiences.
Adventure games as a genre lost the right to be played unaided. Too many of them feature at least one dumb, unintuitive puzzle that uses moon logic to figure out.
Confession time: I've never actually played an adventure game as it was "meant to", figuring out the puzzles myself. Always walkthroughs.
If YouTube had somehow existed in the 80s and 90s, I would have consumed (i.e., watched) every single classic Sierra and LucasArts adventure as passive media experiences.
Oh god, I can't even imagine playing the old Sierra games without at least the option of something like UHS. So many dumb game overs, at least with lucasarts games you could muddle through until you solved it
My favorite was one of the King's Quest games has a moment around midgame where you landed in a giant bird's nest, and there's a sparkly bit in the nest that you only have a couple of seconds to pick up. You needed this to complete the game but you didn't find this out until the end of the game, so if you didn't think to grab it or have a save from before that point, congratulations your entire game is fucked start over loser also be sure to buy our sequel.
I mean, it has some incremental improvements like ammo types and weapon mods, but the basic gameplay is like 95% the same as FO3. I.E. absolutely terrible, even by bethesda standards. (though at least it isn't FO4)
I mean, I actually like the Fallout 3 gameplay as far as it was in that game, there was just nothing in it to drive me forward in New Vegas because it was just more of the same.
The gunplay is terrible in both games, but I always do the thing where you've got insane amount of AP so you can VATS everything, and that's fun (to me) but it gets stale after a while and New Vegas was like more but worse Fallout 3 with fiddly new systems (crafting was fun until you realized it was nearly useless), and a map with no interesting features. I'm still in the middle of Fallout 4, and what of the map I've explored I like, and I enjoy making new settlements and fortifying them, but I also enjoy base-building, so . . . that's a thing.
Shrug, I never found the endless metros in FO3 to be really that different, especially with how terrible the itemization is, even for a bethesda game. Everything is just the same generic single gun per archetype, and there's only 1 variant for each of them, so the vast majority of the dungeons are completely pointless.
And I think that the ring structure and banded levels made NV's world and especially city design a lot more interesting than 3. Whose only real point of interest was stuff in the national mall
Confession time: I've never actually played an adventure game as it was "meant to", figuring out the puzzles myself. Always walkthroughs.
If YouTube had somehow existed in the 80s and 90s, I would have consumed (i.e., watched) every single classic Sierra and LucasArts adventure as passive media experiences.
Adventure games as a genre lost the right to be played unaided. Too many of them feature at least one dumb, unintuitive puzzle that uses moon logic to figure out.
Maize get's props for being a game that was wacky, clever, and I didn't have to grab very many hints, and when I did, I blamed myself, not the devs, for my failure.
Confession time: I've never actually played an adventure game as it was "meant to", figuring out the puzzles myself. Always walkthroughs.
If YouTube had somehow existed in the 80s and 90s, I would have consumed (i.e., watched) every single classic Sierra and LucasArts adventure as passive media experiences.
Oh god, I can't even imagine playing the old Sierra games without at least the option of something like UHS. So many dumb game overs, at least with lucasarts games you could muddle through until you solved it
My favorite was one of the King's Quest games has a moment around midgame where you landed in a giant bird's nest, and there's a sparkly bit in the nest that you only have a couple of seconds to pick up. You needed this to complete the game but you didn't find this out until the end of the game, so if you didn't think to grab it or have a save from before that point, congratulations your entire game is fucked start over loser also be sure to buy our sequel.
They really loved to screw the player over with stuff like that. I remember a Space Quest where you could get kissed by an alien and then way. way later just when you are getting close to finishing the game if that alien kissed you, a chestburster punches through your chest and it's a game over. That was just so mean.
I mean, it has some incremental improvements like ammo types and weapon mods, but the basic gameplay is like 95% the same as FO3. I.E. absolutely terrible, even by bethesda standards. (though at least it isn't FO4)
I mean, I actually like the Fallout 3 gameplay as far as it was in that game, there was just nothing in it to drive me forward in New Vegas because it was just more of the same.
The gunplay is terrible in both games, but I always do the thing where you've got insane amount of AP so you can VATS everything, and that's fun (to me) but it gets stale after a while and New Vegas was like more but worse Fallout 3 with fiddly new systems (crafting was fun until you realized it was nearly useless), and a map with no interesting features. I'm still in the middle of Fallout 4, and what of the map I've explored I like, and I enjoy making new settlements and fortifying them, but I also enjoy base-building, so . . . that's a thing.
I'm not sure why, but I enjoyed playing a melee character in NV so much more despite the melee system being pretty barebones. I was fine with the gunplay in NV and actually enjoyed it with a few specific weapons that punched above their weight but something about the way melee would let you knock around enemies and quickly cripple limbs and sever them on killing blows just added a visceral enjoyment. Pumping myself up with Psycho and morphine and wading into enemies leaving a trail of dismembered legs and arms behind me was stupid fun.
I mean, it has some incremental improvements like ammo types and weapon mods, but the basic gameplay is like 95% the same as FO3. I.E. absolutely terrible, even by bethesda standards. (though at least it isn't FO4)
I mean, I actually like the Fallout 3 gameplay as far as it was in that game, there was just nothing in it to drive me forward in New Vegas because it was just more of the same.
The gunplay is terrible in both games, but I always do the thing where you've got insane amount of AP so you can VATS everything, and that's fun (to me) but it gets stale after a while and New Vegas was like more but worse Fallout 3 with fiddly new systems (crafting was fun until you realized it was nearly useless), and a map with no interesting features. I'm still in the middle of Fallout 4, and what of the map I've explored I like, and I enjoy making new settlements and fortifying them, but I also enjoy base-building, so . . . that's a thing.
I'm not sure why, but I enjoyed playing a melee character in NV so much more despite the melee system being pretty barebones. I was fine with the gunplay in NV and actually enjoyed it with a few specific weapons that punched above their weight but something about the way melee would let you knock around enemies and quickly cripple limbs and sever them on killing blows just added a visceral enjoyment. Pumping myself up with Psycho and morphine and wading into enemies leaving a trail of dismembered legs and arms behind me was stupid fun.
I prefer the Bloody Mess perk, a Rifle, a Combat Shotgun, a Sniper Rifle, and some heavy weapon (usually a minigun).
Showers of slo-mo gore in VATS.
I make art things! deviantART:Kalnaur ::: Origin: Kalnaur ::: UPlay: Kalnaur
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
Confession time: I've never actually played an adventure game as it was "meant to", figuring out the puzzles myself. Always walkthroughs.
If YouTube had somehow existed in the 80s and 90s, I would have consumed (i.e., watched) every single classic Sierra and LucasArts adventure as passive media experiences.
Oh god, I can't even imagine playing the old Sierra games without at least the option of something like UHS. So many dumb game overs, at least with lucasarts games you could muddle through until you solved it
My favorite was one of the King's Quest games has a moment around midgame where you landed in a giant bird's nest, and there's a sparkly bit in the nest that you only have a couple of seconds to pick up. You needed this to complete the game but you didn't find this out until the end of the game, so if you didn't think to grab it or have a save from before that point, congratulations your entire game is fucked start over loser also be sure to buy our sequel.
They really loved to screw the player over with stuff like that. I remember a Space Quest where you could get kissed by an alien and then way. way later just when you are getting close to finishing the game if that alien kissed you, a chestburster punches through your chest and it's a game over. That was just so mean.
Meanest Adventure game will always be Hitchhiker's Guide
I don't have any video game hot takes to amuse the thread with, but I have a much better example of total bullshit logic from Sierra games than those given above:
One of the puzzle solutions in the earlier Kings Quest games that use a text parser is you have to say Rumplestiltskin's name backwards.
But you know what I don't hate. The fact that we had 4 pages of hot take, a little friendly conversation, and everyone enjoying the spirit of the conversation without losing their minds.
Which reminds me...I only played Witcher 3 for like 20 minutes before the feeling that I was missing so much context, and I was at a party I wasn't invited to because I hadn't played the first 2 games overwhelmed me and I quit.
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Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
I guess I am late, but my hot take is I hate the FPS genre. Like, almost all of it. I suck at them and don't find shooting things fun.
Confession time: I've never actually played an adventure game as it was "meant to", figuring out the puzzles myself. Always walkthroughs.
If YouTube had somehow existed in the 80s and 90s, I would have consumed (i.e., watched) every single classic Sierra and LucasArts adventure as passive media experiences.
Oh god, I can't even imagine playing the old Sierra games without at least the option of something like UHS. So many dumb game overs, at least with lucasarts games you could muddle through until you solved it
My favorite was one of the King's Quest games has a moment around midgame where you landed in a giant bird's nest, and there's a sparkly bit in the nest that you only have a couple of seconds to pick up. You needed this to complete the game but you didn't find this out until the end of the game, so if you didn't think to grab it or have a save from before that point, congratulations your entire game is fucked start over loser also be sure to buy our sequel.
They really loved to screw the player over with stuff like that. I remember a Space Quest where you could get kissed by an alien and then way. way later just when you are getting close to finishing the game if that alien kissed you, a chestburster punches through your chest and it's a game over. That was just so mean.
Meanest Adventure game will always be Hitchhiker's Guide
There's a meaner text adventure game actually written by Douglas Adams called Bureaucracy. The objective of the game is to go to your new local bank after having moved house for a new job, and have them update your debit card.
Every time you parse a command that fails, or something goes wrong, your blood pressure increases.
I died of an aneurysm before speaking to a bank teller.
--
Edited to add Sierra's idea of progressing the genre in line with technology. Around Space Quest IV when they updated to SVGA graphics and some voice overs, the narrator would congratulate your failure on the death screens.
"Thank you for playing Space Quest IV! As usual, you've been a complete pant load!"
I first came to love adventure games as a young kid through LucasArts, with Monkey Island, Full Throttle, and Grim Fandango. The first Sierra title I tried was Police Quest 1, the SVGA version. Turns out that was the most forgiving, least bullshit-filled games they put out. I would have had a massively different experience if I had been exposed to their King or Space quests first.
cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
I think my hottest take for PC games is that I like Shadowrun Returns more than Hong Kong. Well, and Bloodlines more than Half Life 2, but that's just common knowledge.
I first came to love adventure games as a young kid through LucasArts, with Monkey Island, Full Throttle, and Grim Fandango. The first Sierra title I tried was Police Quest 1, the SVGA version. Turns out that was the most forgiving, least bullshit-filled games they put out. I would have had a massively different experience if I had been exposed to their King or Space quests first.
The first Space Quest game I was exposed to as a kid was Space Quest 6. I come to find out a little later that 6 was known as being by far their most forgiving title, closer to a LucasArts adventure than the traditional Sierra adventure. I loved 6 but by comparison about the dozenth time I was killed by one of those god damn floating drone bots at the very start of 4 for extremely unclear reasons(later finding out it was for standing anywhere for too long that isn't under a ledge) I didn't have a very long relationship with Sierra games.
Man. Y'all were just really mean to a lot of my favorite video games.
I think Quest for Glory or Space Quest I were the first games I played on my own as a kid, with an idea what I was doing (as opposed to just noodling around with Dizzy on the Spectrum). And they were great fun. Yeah they gleefully shanked you at every opportunity, and sometimes you needed your moonbat hat, but that was just the constraints of the genre.
As a kid, I was willing to sit there for days figuring out a puzzle. Wrapping up that first SQ game, in black and white even, was a joy that I still remember today.
Sierra did a lot of amazing things for the industry, and they got a lot of kids into playing games - with words, vocabulary, and help from long-suffering parents.
Some of the puzzles are still bullshit, but expectations are different now.
Man. Y'all were just really mean to a lot of my favorite video games.
I think Quest for Glory or Space Quest I were the first games I played on my own as a kid, with an idea what I was doing (as opposed to just noodling around with Dizzy on the Spectrum). And they were great fun. Yeah they gleefully shanked you at every opportunity, and sometimes you needed your moonbat hat, but that was just the constraints of the genre.
As a kid, I was willing to sit there for days figuring out a puzzle. Wrapping up that first SQ game, in black and white even, was a joy that I still remember today.
Sierra did a lot of amazing things for the industry, and they got a lot of kids into playing games - with words, vocabulary, and help from long-suffering parents.
Some of the puzzles are still bullshit, but expectations are different now.
I played the text parsing SQ1 as well on my EGA monitor (16 colours, baby!) and I actually learned my left and right from that game. There's a room on the starting ship with two doors on the back wall and 2 buttons in between them. You had to type "Press left button" and then "press right button" and the left and right doors would open respectively. I'm kind of amazed I could play that game and get that far without knowing my left and right but, there you have it.
Ooh are we doing hot takes? In honor of Mass Effect remastered coming out soon:
- ME3 was a good capstone to the arcs that came before it, except for the ending ofc. But the stories for each of the planets tied a bow on most of the plotlines pretty well.
- If any game needed a final cut where you reject both the blue and red options, it was DA2, not ME3
- ME2 should have just been a side story, because you wouldn't lose anything from skipping it. Except for the chance to kowtow to space nazis.
- Some parts of the fan base totally actually are a fan of the space nazis just because of the Voice Actor (see also: Alan Rickman, Tom Felton)
- ME1's inventory system wasn't that bad (on PC)
Can't really disagree with any of those! (Regarding the space nazis, seeing an N7 hoodie in a photo of some far-right rally a couple of years back crushed me. And apparently some of them hook onto Javik's most famous quote too; to most of us I would have thought the point of that quote was that Javik was wrong, but I guess not to everyone...)
Regarding your fifth, the "on PC" does a lot of heavy lifting there! Yeah, on PC it was reworked in the port and wasn't intolerable. On console it's nothing short of diabolical. The worst part is dealing with mods when, after you omni-gel something at the bottom of the list where all the weaker stuff is (and there's no sorting options), it jumps back to the top of the list Every. Single. Time.
Also, not exactly a hot take, but ME2's scanning minigame was garbage. At least it was patched to be less garbage than it was, but it remained garbage nonetheless. Unfortunately it was necessary if you wanted all the cool upgrades.
In fact, as much as I love the games and it's my favourite series ever, every single Mass Effect game has something crap about it. There's a hot take.
I'm incredibly sick of FPS games too, and have been for years. I can put up with first-person in immersive sims (e.g. Deus Ex series) or RPGs (e.g. Cyberpunk 2077), but an actual FPS, I'm not interested in any more. Even Doom 2016 left me cold. (Although I can still have fun for a while with Doom 1993 but that's partially nostalgia goggles. Also I'll still dust off L4D2 on occasion but that feels sort of immersive-sim-y in a way, with just bursts of frantic action in amongst tension. It doesn't feel like other FPS games to me.)
I made one exception for this at the urging of a friend a couple of years back, and he was dead right. That exception was Titanfall 2, which is a complete masterpiece.
I don't care for first-person games much because it absolutely does not feel like I'm there. It feels like I'm controlling a remote camera with a limited field of view. From a distance.
At least third-person allows me to see more of what is happening.
I found Horizon Zero Dawn's gameplay to be disappointing and can't remember any of its cast of characters outside of Aloy and Sylens.
Horizon Zero Dawn is like the alpha of Assassin's Creed: <Newer Ones> with clunkier movement.
Story will probably be better, though.
I'm playing Origins right now, and it's definitely my second to lowest ranking. H:ZD feels more like baby's first Monster Hunter to me (which is exactly the level of Monster Hunter I enjoy).
I'm trying as I play it to meet AC: Origins on its own terms, but the more I play the more I realize that "it's own terms" is less "Here's how we're innovating Assassin's Creed" and more "Wait wait don't leave - we can be the Witcher, too!"
Final Fantasy 7 ruined the series.
Bastian's gameplay was dull (the music and VO was amazing).
The Metal Gear Solid series has too many cutscenes and the storylines are a mess.
100% agreed on FF7. Final Fantasy peaked with 6, but I think 7 fell into a weird cultural niche where the Playstation was the first console to successfully market itself as "for everyone" and it was the exact kind of bad story and characters that 13 year olds ate for breakfast in the late 90's. It gave it a permanent place in popular culture while better installments both before and after languish in comparative obscurity.
Still, I'll take anything that's come of Final Fantasy over Chrono Cross.
I love the NES/SNES Final Fantasy games, but maybe my "worst" FF opinion is that FFX is a damn masterpiece. I don't give a crap about the story, but the turn-based battles and the sphere grid more than make up for it. I'm sad every time I pick up a turn-based RPG and the battling isn't as good or as flexible as FFX.
I also like XII but wish the gambits unlocked sooner. I loved the feeling I got as I was closing in on the end of the game and knew I had everybody programmed just right.
I don't care for first-person games much because it absolutely does not feel like I'm there. It feels like I'm controlling a remote camera with a limited field of view. From a distance.
At least third-person allows me to see more of what is happening.
The ability to look down from a first-person view and see my character's body existing in the world makes a huge difference to my feeling of immersion in a first-person game. Cyberpunk actually does that quite well without needing to constantly show limbs and such in your peripheral vision like Mirror's Edge, although I didn't mind that approach either.
But looking down to nothing, yeah, it makes me feel like I'm just a disembodied camera floating through a world. I generally get much more sense of immersion from a third-person game, counterintuitive though it may seem, as well as a more "real"-feeling spatial awareness.
Inventory Tetris is actually awful and boring and not fun at all.
Weight restrictions are boring.
So is the "can only hold two firearms" of seemingly a host of modern shooters.
Durability is Bad, Actually™ and while it's usually meant to give some sense of struggle all it really does is give a player more busywork to do.
I'm a broken man who actively enjoys inventory Tetris. Durability can fuck right off though.
Also, Breath of the Wild is a trash fire and I'm sad that it did so well because it means I'm probably not getting Zelda games that I like anytime soon (though the Link's Awakening remake is exceedingly good, and I love it to pieces).
I don't care for first-person games much because it absolutely does not feel like I'm there. It feels like I'm controlling a remote camera with a limited field of view. From a distance.
At least third-person allows me to see more of what is happening.
The ability to look down from a first-person view and see my character's body existing in the world makes a huge difference to my feeling of immersion in a first-person game. Cyberpunk actually does that quite well without needing to constantly show limbs and such in your peripheral vision like Mirror's Edge, although I didn't mind that approach either.
But looking down to nothing, yeah, it makes me feel like I'm just a disembodied camera floating through a world. I generally get much more sense of immersion from a third-person game, counterintuitive though it may seem, as well as a more "real"-feeling spatial awareness.
Graphical presentation of body parts does no increase immersion for me. Neither does camera bob. I simply struggle to determine spatial positioning in the game world. Something easier to do for real because we can use multiple senses rather than limited sight.
The 'trick' to Mirror's Edge is the bottom of the screen with the camera level is where your feet are. It's still annoying.
I found Horizon Zero Dawn's gameplay to be disappointing and can't remember any of its cast of characters outside of Aloy and Sylens.
Horizon Zero Dawn is like the alpha of Assassin's Creed: <Newer Ones> with clunkier movement.
Story will probably be better, though.
I'm playing Origins right now, and it's definitely my second to lowest ranking. H:ZD feels more like baby's first Monster Hunter to me (which is exactly the level of Monster Hunter I enjoy).
I'm trying as I play it to meet AC: Origins on its own terms, but the more I play the more I realize that "it's own terms" is less "Here's how we're innovating Assassin's Creed" and more "Wait wait don't leave - we can be the Witcher, too!"
My biggest problems with AC (and many games, but generally involves UbiSoft) is that my brain really dislikes missing out on stuff. I cannot move on with the story while al those side quests and collectibles are left in the map. This in turn makes the game drag on forever and means I'll probably stop playing really soon.
So I make the games boring all by myself. Quite the achievement.
Inventory Tetris is actually awful and boring and not fun at all.
Weight restrictions are boring.
So is the "can only hold two firearms" of seemingly a host of modern shooters.
Durability is Bad, Actually™ and while it's usually meant to give some sense of struggle all it really does is give a player more busywork to do.
I'm a broken man who actively enjoys inventory Tetris. Durability can fuck right off though.
Also, Breath of the Wild is a trash fire and I'm sad that it did so well because it means I'm probably not getting Zelda games that I like anytime soon (though the Link's Awakening remake is exceedingly good, and I love it to pieces).
I'd be curious if you could (or would, to be fair) expand on the trash fire.
I didn't get on with it either, but to me it just felt more on the worse end of "meh" and I just didn't want to go back to it.
QuestorPAX Aus Tabletop [E]Melbourne, AustraliaRegistered Userregular
I love BOTW (though durability can go die in a fire) but I think it suffered from Twilight Princess syndrome in that it was originally developed for one console then ported to the new generation because of delays. I think if it was meant solely for one machine they would have had more time to look at some of the systems and perhaps realise that they were not fun to play.
Confession time: I've never actually played an adventure game as it was "meant to", figuring out the puzzles myself. Always walkthroughs.
If YouTube had somehow existed in the 80s and 90s, I would have consumed (i.e., watched) every single classic Sierra and LucasArts adventure as passive media experiences.
Adventure games as a genre lost the right to be played unaided. Too many of them feature at least one dumb, unintuitive puzzle that uses moon logic to figure out.
I used to say the Myst games get a pass on this shit, but last year I played through the series again and apparently my brain had suppressed the fire marble puzzle because fuuuuuuuuuu
I love BOTW (though durability can go die in a fire) but I think it suffered from Twilight Princess syndrome in that it was originally developed for one console then ported to the new generation because of delays. I think if it was meant solely for one machine they would have had more time to look at some of the systems and perhaps realise that they were not fun to play.
If we're still doing hot takes I got one: The two games aren't similiar in many ways but the comparision was immediately made by everyone. But I like Immortals: Fenyx Rising better than Breath of the Wild.
Inventory Tetris is actually awful and boring and not fun at all.
Weight restrictions are boring.
So is the "can only hold two firearms" of seemingly a host of modern shooters.
Durability is Bad, Actually™ and while it's usually meant to give some sense of struggle all it really does is give a player more busywork to do.
I'm a broken man who actively enjoys inventory Tetris. Durability can fuck right off though.
Also, Breath of the Wild is a trash fire and I'm sad that it did so well because it means I'm probably not getting Zelda games that I like anytime soon (though the Link's Awakening remake is exceedingly good, and I love it to pieces).
I'd be curious if you could (or would, to be fair) expand on the trash fire.
I didn't get on with it either, but to me it just felt more on the worse end of "meh" and I just didn't want to go back to it.
It's almost assuredly that I'm now a certified Old PersonTM, but...
I like a more guided experience. I know that Link Between Worlds also moved in the direction of "tackle these dungeons in any order", but the Zelda experience that I enjoy most is "I found my way to this dungeon so I'm going to explore it, find the new tool, practice with it, and then beat up a boss with it. After that I'll be able to do more things in the overworld like get that heart piece I saw on the way here, pick up that bottle I saw 2 dungeons ago (if I remember where it was!) and eventually access the dungeon after this one.
Combat has always been a big part of the series, but it's not why I come to a Zelda game. I want to grab new tools, figure out what environmental challenges they're good against, figure out which enemies they trivialize, and honestly spend as little time as possible actually whapping skeletons with a sword. My favorite Zelda turns the combat into a puzzle of its own (Cadence of Hyrule) which actually made me like the whole thing a lot more. I want the "do do doo do" sound when I've figured out a puzzle way more than I want the empty room after I've whapped all the skeletons enough times. Test of Strength shrines were especially unwelcome for me. They weren't real dungeons, and they were all combat. Pass.
As stated earlier (and not just by me) weapon durability is an abomination - particularly when if affects the dang Master Sword. You want my stick to wear out after I whap 12 bokoblins? Fine, I guess. I'll pick up another one. You want my Master Sword to need some time off? Fuck you. It's the Zelda equivalent of Excalibur - it's not supposed to get tired and fall apart. It's better than the dumb stick I found 20 minutes into the game.
I don't like the climbing and stamina system. It felt like every time, without fail, as soon as I started climbing a thing it would start to rain and make the climb harder. I also don't like the cooking stuff. I don't want to collect ingredients and make myself dinner before I go climbing so that I'm resistant to cold. It's too much. Just let me find the blue jerkin or whatever. I'll put it on when it's cold, I promise. But having to find, keep, and prepare carrots, iceberg lettuce, and parsnips or whatever to make the cold resist stew is the worst.
The Divine Beast dungeons were a letdown. All the designs felt uninspired because they tore all of the cool bits out and put them into the shrines instead.
And at the end of the day, BotW really cemented for me that 3D Zelda is not a thing I've ever truly enjoyed by default. WW and TP are special. Ocarina of Time is ugly as sin and hard to control, Majora's Mask's reset mechanics are infuriating, I want to like Skyward Sword but the never-ending tutorial messages and the forced waggle combat are gross, and my issues with Breath of the Wild are on display for all to see. The only good 3D Zeldas they've ever made are Wind Waker (I adore the King of Red Lions stuff, and the dungeon design is fantastic) and Twilight Princess (I love the top and associated boss fight, really dig turning Link into a wolf, and Snowpeak Ruins rules).
I'm also here for the music. Give me a good rendition of Gerudo Valley and I'm guaranteed to like the game more.
I love BOTW (though durability can go die in a fire) but I think it suffered from Twilight Princess syndrome in that it was originally developed for one console then ported to the new generation because of delays. I think if it was meant solely for one machine they would have had more time to look at some of the systems and perhaps realise that they were not fun to play.
I could live with BOTW's durability system because of how the final hit a weapon did got a massive damage bonus. You actually got some payoff and could even use it strategically. But that didn't alleviate all the inventory juggling needing to cart around so many weapons led to and I think the same gameplay flow could have been done in other ways.
So Karoz tried to get us all to post our hatred towards popular games. We posted and everybody just acted like Luke Skywalker and didn't destroy each other. Karoz then releases forum code that starts to wipe out our Steam Libraries. Karoz gets banned and we suddenly realize that Gabe Newell is a PA Mod.
(Going to put the rest behind spoilers since I am going to assume someone has not seen the ending to the newest Star Wars Trilogy.)
Karoz comes back needing some seemingly random PA forum members' kids to take over their bodies in order to continue his evil plan. He is foiled once again by the PA Forum! Everybody goes home and enjoys gaming till the end of time.
Posts
Oh god, I can't even imagine playing the old Sierra games without at least the option of something like UHS. So many dumb game overs, at least with lucasarts games you could muddle through until you solved it
Adventure games as a genre lost the right to be played unaided. Too many of them feature at least one dumb, unintuitive puzzle that uses moon logic to figure out.
My favorite was one of the King's Quest games has a moment around midgame where you landed in a giant bird's nest, and there's a sparkly bit in the nest that you only have a couple of seconds to pick up. You needed this to complete the game but you didn't find this out until the end of the game, so if you didn't think to grab it or have a save from before that point, congratulations your entire game is fucked start over loser also be sure to buy our sequel.
Shrug, I never found the endless metros in FO3 to be really that different, especially with how terrible the itemization is, even for a bethesda game. Everything is just the same generic single gun per archetype, and there's only 1 variant for each of them, so the vast majority of the dungeons are completely pointless.
And I think that the ring structure and banded levels made NV's world and especially city design a lot more interesting than 3. Whose only real point of interest was stuff in the national mall
Maize get's props for being a game that was wacky, clever, and I didn't have to grab very many hints, and when I did, I blamed myself, not the devs, for my failure.
Steam ID: Good Life
They really loved to screw the player over with stuff like that. I remember a Space Quest where you could get kissed by an alien and then way. way later just when you are getting close to finishing the game if that alien kissed you, a chestburster punches through your chest and it's a game over. That was just so mean.
I'm not sure why, but I enjoyed playing a melee character in NV so much more despite the melee system being pretty barebones. I was fine with the gunplay in NV and actually enjoyed it with a few specific weapons that punched above their weight but something about the way melee would let you knock around enemies and quickly cripple limbs and sever them on killing blows just added a visceral enjoyment. Pumping myself up with Psycho and morphine and wading into enemies leaving a trail of dismembered legs and arms behind me was stupid fun.
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I prefer the Bloody Mess perk, a Rifle, a Combat Shotgun, a Sniper Rifle, and some heavy weapon (usually a minigun).
Showers of slo-mo gore in VATS.
Meanest Adventure game will always be Hitchhiker's Guide
One of the puzzle solutions in the earlier Kings Quest games that use a text parser is you have to say Rumplestiltskin's name backwards.
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Which reminds me...I only played Witcher 3 for like 20 minutes before the feeling that I was missing so much context, and I was at a party I wasn't invited to because I hadn't played the first 2 games overwhelmed me and I quit.
There's a meaner text adventure game actually written by Douglas Adams called Bureaucracy. The objective of the game is to go to your new local bank after having moved house for a new job, and have them update your debit card.
Every time you parse a command that fails, or something goes wrong, your blood pressure increases.
I died of an aneurysm before speaking to a bank teller.
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Edited to add Sierra's idea of progressing the genre in line with technology. Around Space Quest IV when they updated to SVGA graphics and some voice overs, the narrator would congratulate your failure on the death screens.
"Thank you for playing Space Quest IV! As usual, you've been a complete pant load!"
I first came to love adventure games as a young kid through LucasArts, with Monkey Island, Full Throttle, and Grim Fandango. The first Sierra title I tried was Police Quest 1, the SVGA version. Turns out that was the most forgiving, least bullshit-filled games they put out. I would have had a massively different experience if I had been exposed to their King or Space quests first.
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The first Space Quest game I was exposed to as a kid was Space Quest 6. I come to find out a little later that 6 was known as being by far their most forgiving title, closer to a LucasArts adventure than the traditional Sierra adventure. I loved 6 but by comparison about the dozenth time I was killed by one of those god damn floating drone bots at the very start of 4 for extremely unclear reasons(later finding out it was for standing anywhere for too long that isn't under a ledge) I didn't have a very long relationship with Sierra games.
I think Quest for Glory or Space Quest I were the first games I played on my own as a kid, with an idea what I was doing (as opposed to just noodling around with Dizzy on the Spectrum). And they were great fun. Yeah they gleefully shanked you at every opportunity, and sometimes you needed your moonbat hat, but that was just the constraints of the genre.
As a kid, I was willing to sit there for days figuring out a puzzle. Wrapping up that first SQ game, in black and white even, was a joy that I still remember today.
Sierra did a lot of amazing things for the industry, and they got a lot of kids into playing games - with words, vocabulary, and help from long-suffering parents.
Some of the puzzles are still bullshit, but expectations are different now.
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I played the text parsing SQ1 as well on my EGA monitor (16 colours, baby!) and I actually learned my left and right from that game. There's a room on the starting ship with two doors on the back wall and 2 buttons in between them. You had to type "Press left button" and then "press right button" and the left and right doors would open respectively. I'm kind of amazed I could play that game and get that far without knowing my left and right but, there you have it.
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Can't really disagree with any of those! (Regarding the space nazis, seeing an N7 hoodie in a photo of some far-right rally a couple of years back crushed me. And apparently some of them hook onto Javik's most famous quote too; to most of us I would have thought the point of that quote was that Javik was wrong, but I guess not to everyone...)
Regarding your fifth, the "on PC" does a lot of heavy lifting there! Yeah, on PC it was reworked in the port and wasn't intolerable. On console it's nothing short of diabolical. The worst part is dealing with mods when, after you omni-gel something at the bottom of the list where all the weaker stuff is (and there's no sorting options), it jumps back to the top of the list Every. Single. Time.
Also, not exactly a hot take, but ME2's scanning minigame was garbage. At least it was patched to be less garbage than it was, but it remained garbage nonetheless. Unfortunately it was necessary if you wanted all the cool upgrades.
In fact, as much as I love the games and it's my favourite series ever, every single Mass Effect game has something crap about it. There's a hot take.
Steam | XBL
I made one exception for this at the urging of a friend a couple of years back, and he was dead right. That exception was Titanfall 2, which is a complete masterpiece.
Steam | XBL
At least third-person allows me to see more of what is happening.
I'm playing Origins right now, and it's definitely my second to lowest ranking. H:ZD feels more like baby's first Monster Hunter to me (which is exactly the level of Monster Hunter I enjoy).
I'm trying as I play it to meet AC: Origins on its own terms, but the more I play the more I realize that "it's own terms" is less "Here's how we're innovating Assassin's Creed" and more "Wait wait don't leave - we can be the Witcher, too!"
I love the NES/SNES Final Fantasy games, but maybe my "worst" FF opinion is that FFX is a damn masterpiece. I don't give a crap about the story, but the turn-based battles and the sphere grid more than make up for it. I'm sad every time I pick up a turn-based RPG and the battling isn't as good or as flexible as FFX.
I also like XII but wish the gambits unlocked sooner. I loved the feeling I got as I was closing in on the end of the game and knew I had everybody programmed just right.
The ability to look down from a first-person view and see my character's body existing in the world makes a huge difference to my feeling of immersion in a first-person game. Cyberpunk actually does that quite well without needing to constantly show limbs and such in your peripheral vision like Mirror's Edge, although I didn't mind that approach either.
But looking down to nothing, yeah, it makes me feel like I'm just a disembodied camera floating through a world. I generally get much more sense of immersion from a third-person game, counterintuitive though it may seem, as well as a more "real"-feeling spatial awareness.
Steam | XBL
I'm a broken man who actively enjoys inventory Tetris. Durability can fuck right off though.
Also, Breath of the Wild is a trash fire and I'm sad that it did so well because it means I'm probably not getting Zelda games that I like anytime soon (though the Link's Awakening remake is exceedingly good, and I love it to pieces).
Oh, absolutely.
Steam | XBL
Graphical presentation of body parts does no increase immersion for me. Neither does camera bob. I simply struggle to determine spatial positioning in the game world. Something easier to do for real because we can use multiple senses rather than limited sight.
The 'trick' to Mirror's Edge is the bottom of the screen with the camera level is where your feet are. It's still annoying.
I absolutely would like it more for this. If it didn't come with the Xbox, I'd have probably skipped it.
My biggest problems with AC (and many games, but generally involves UbiSoft) is that my brain really dislikes missing out on stuff. I cannot move on with the story while al those side quests and collectibles are left in the map. This in turn makes the game drag on forever and means I'll probably stop playing really soon.
So I make the games boring all by myself. Quite the achievement.
I'd be curious if you could (or would, to be fair) expand on the trash fire.
I didn't get on with it either, but to me it just felt more on the worse end of "meh" and I just didn't want to go back to it.
Steam | XBL
I used to say the Myst games get a pass on this shit, but last year I played through the series again and apparently my brain had suppressed the fire marble puzzle because fuuuuuuuuuu
If we're still doing hot takes I got one: The two games aren't similiar in many ways but the comparision was immediately made by everyone. But I like Immortals: Fenyx Rising better than Breath of the Wild.
Me gleefully reading the shit show I started.
It's almost assuredly that I'm now a certified Old PersonTM, but...
I like a more guided experience. I know that Link Between Worlds also moved in the direction of "tackle these dungeons in any order", but the Zelda experience that I enjoy most is "I found my way to this dungeon so I'm going to explore it, find the new tool, practice with it, and then beat up a boss with it. After that I'll be able to do more things in the overworld like get that heart piece I saw on the way here, pick up that bottle I saw 2 dungeons ago (if I remember where it was!) and eventually access the dungeon after this one.
Combat has always been a big part of the series, but it's not why I come to a Zelda game. I want to grab new tools, figure out what environmental challenges they're good against, figure out which enemies they trivialize, and honestly spend as little time as possible actually whapping skeletons with a sword. My favorite Zelda turns the combat into a puzzle of its own (Cadence of Hyrule) which actually made me like the whole thing a lot more. I want the "do do doo do" sound when I've figured out a puzzle way more than I want the empty room after I've whapped all the skeletons enough times. Test of Strength shrines were especially unwelcome for me. They weren't real dungeons, and they were all combat. Pass.
As stated earlier (and not just by me) weapon durability is an abomination - particularly when if affects the dang Master Sword. You want my stick to wear out after I whap 12 bokoblins? Fine, I guess. I'll pick up another one. You want my Master Sword to need some time off? Fuck you. It's the Zelda equivalent of Excalibur - it's not supposed to get tired and fall apart. It's better than the dumb stick I found 20 minutes into the game.
I don't like the climbing and stamina system. It felt like every time, without fail, as soon as I started climbing a thing it would start to rain and make the climb harder. I also don't like the cooking stuff. I don't want to collect ingredients and make myself dinner before I go climbing so that I'm resistant to cold. It's too much. Just let me find the blue jerkin or whatever. I'll put it on when it's cold, I promise. But having to find, keep, and prepare carrots, iceberg lettuce, and parsnips or whatever to make the cold resist stew is the worst.
The Divine Beast dungeons were a letdown. All the designs felt uninspired because they tore all of the cool bits out and put them into the shrines instead.
And at the end of the day, BotW really cemented for me that 3D Zelda is not a thing I've ever truly enjoyed by default. WW and TP are special. Ocarina of Time is ugly as sin and hard to control, Majora's Mask's reset mechanics are infuriating, I want to like Skyward Sword but the never-ending tutorial messages and the forced waggle combat are gross, and my issues with Breath of the Wild are on display for all to see. The only good 3D Zeldas they've ever made are Wind Waker (I adore the King of Red Lions stuff, and the dungeon design is fantastic) and Twilight Princess (I love the top and associated boss fight, really dig turning Link into a wolf, and Snowpeak Ruins rules).
I'm also here for the music. Give me a good rendition of Gerudo Valley and I'm guaranteed to like the game more.
Speaking of a dope version of Gerudo Valley, here's the best one!
I could live with BOTW's durability system because of how the final hit a weapon did got a massive damage bonus. You actually got some payoff and could even use it strategically. But that didn't alleviate all the inventory juggling needing to cart around so many weapons led to and I think the same gameplay flow could have been done in other ways.
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(Going to put the rest behind spoilers since I am going to assume someone has not seen the ending to the newest Star Wars Trilogy.)
Steam: betsuni7
I'll put this hot take out there. Want to make your game hot garbage? Put in unnecessary "survival elements" just because.
Also, being a "rogue-lite" or"'rogue-like" shouldn't be an excuse for a game that's grinding and repetitive. It's overdone.
Same thing with "deck builder". Making elements in your game look like cards doesn't make it a deck builder. It probably makes it shitty, though.
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.