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Criticize your most beloved games
Dangerou-Dave
__BANNED USERS regular
__BANNED USERS regular
This is kind of an odd thread idea, I suppose...but it might be interesting for people to pick their most loved games, and pick them apart.
For example, I absolutely LOVE Mass Effect. Holy shit did that game ever suck me in. I played it for hours and hours at a time, when I actually had the time. So, considering how much I adore this game, let me now bitch about it.
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Loot! I am a big RPG fan, and I can tell you the loot alone has been one of the biggest reasons I've been addicted to certain games (Diablo 2, cough). KOTOR's system let me down, and Mass Effects did as well. Oh boy, a long quest, and my reward is an Avenger IV, seven Banshee II's, and three identical ammo upgrades. Now, what did I have previously? An Avenger III? Hm...
The skill system! Mass Effect's worked just fine, and I loved that I could put all my skill points in combat and leave other squad mates to focus on one or two skills (i.e. my 'go-to' lockpicker, or my 'go-to' computer expert). But it's just not as interesting as a system like original Fallouts, in my opinion. Sure, putting points in Charm yielded different dialogue options, but in a game like fallout, where you put points affects who fires on sight, who will bother to talk to you, and can unlock entirely different dialogue trees. I understand that with the voice acting and sheer amount of resources placed in other aspects of Mass Effect, this is asking a lot...but that's not to say these types of things weren't missed.
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There we go...Mass Effect was my game of the year for 2007 by far...so it pained me to write this, haha.
For example, I absolutely LOVE Mass Effect. Holy shit did that game ever suck me in. I played it for hours and hours at a time, when I actually had the time. So, considering how much I adore this game, let me now bitch about it.
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Loot! I am a big RPG fan, and I can tell you the loot alone has been one of the biggest reasons I've been addicted to certain games (Diablo 2, cough). KOTOR's system let me down, and Mass Effects did as well. Oh boy, a long quest, and my reward is an Avenger IV, seven Banshee II's, and three identical ammo upgrades. Now, what did I have previously? An Avenger III? Hm...
The skill system! Mass Effect's worked just fine, and I loved that I could put all my skill points in combat and leave other squad mates to focus on one or two skills (i.e. my 'go-to' lockpicker, or my 'go-to' computer expert). But it's just not as interesting as a system like original Fallouts, in my opinion. Sure, putting points in Charm yielded different dialogue options, but in a game like fallout, where you put points affects who fires on sight, who will bother to talk to you, and can unlock entirely different dialogue trees. I understand that with the voice acting and sheer amount of resources placed in other aspects of Mass Effect, this is asking a lot...but that's not to say these types of things weren't missed.
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There we go...Mass Effect was my game of the year for 2007 by far...so it pained me to write this, haha.
Dangerou-Dave on
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Left 4 Dead... Still waiting for Vs. on the other 2 campaigns.
Planescape: Torment... Raised the bar, making all games worse by comparison.
...and now I'm probably going to play through the game again over the next week.
Baldur's Gate 2 - Seriously? I walk back in to the town and like 80 people have quests for me?
No More Heroes - Lawn Mower? Really?
Persona 3 - Cant control your teammates action
Crono Trigger - Too easy
Mario 3 - See Crono Trigger
Castlevania - you can't change direction in midair while jumping! Mario can do it, Sonic can do it, so when all the enemies are twice as fast as you are, why can't you ignore simple physics and curve midair. The game would be ten times better for it.
Extreme PaintBrawl! - the AI was just too clever for mere humans to take on.
Planescape Torment: Like most of the old D&D RPGs at the time, I don't really like the combat.
Sex!
First of all,
The thing I couldn't stand about the game was how many times I'd have to retry entire missions upon reaching the end, only to be shot/killed by something ridiculous. There are several missions (the final one is freshest in my head) that call on you simply playing the mission and memorizing it - then being told no, not like that, do it again!
Sometimes wandering around looking for a vantage point for 10 minutes because the door you were supposed to walk in was too dark. Accomplices dying of their own stupidity at the end of missions, meaning you have to redo all 5-10 minutes of the mission again - once, twice, for me on one particular mission, nearly ten times - and it isn't your fault.
A brilliant game, but how the hell did it get a 10 on all of the review sites? Is this supposed to be a perfect game, with no room for improvement, reviewers?
HERRO AND WERCOME TO HONG KONG MISTER DENTON.
Ultima 7: Too many fun things to go do and explore. As a kid I never did the storyline quests. All I did was waste my time getting rich, stealing thousands of things from around the world and decorating a house that I stole after murduring its hippy occupant. And for fucksake, there is a magic carpet available right away if you know where it is, and its so much fun that it instantly renders the horse and cart, and boating obsolete.
DOTA: Constantly updating the map and adding new features, heros, skills, and items to try out for years on end?!?? I can't ever stop playing this.
But he looks so stylish while he works
Change air blade-
THEY DIDN'T RELEASE IT HERE IN THE USA! Sammy why do you hate me? All I want is some VS shmup battles on a console.
Raiden fighters arcade collection for the 360.
THEY DIDN'T RELEASE IT HERE IN THE USA! Still need to pick this one up. Its raiden fighters. Nothing else like it out there.
Tetris grand master (any version)
THEY DIDN'T RELEASE IT HERE IN THE USA! The finest tetris version ever and it would of sold well here. I guess they don't like money.
As far as games released in the states
Halo 3- Failed to really change things up. Constantly catering to the MLG idiot crowd. Campaign still suffers from Shitty AI syndrome. I love how microsoft sits on maps because they *think* they will sell more halo wars because of it.
(going back)
Asteroids deluxe- Why do you hate me so? Why the hell is this game so hard? What the hell? I mean come on. This is like getting my balls sawed off slowly. I guess the same could be said about ikaruga.
And yet- I own the actual arcade machine for asteroids deluxe because it's so awesome.
XBL - Foreverender | 3DS FC - 1418 6696 1012 | Steam ID | LoL
- The throwaway boss fight
- The inability to kill pedestrians
- Too many "don't get hit!" bonus kill missions
Zack and Wiki
- The fuckin snake in the hole in the mad scientist level
- Big fat ol jaggy as the last screen
Halo 3
- Beat the campaign in a day and said "that's it?"
- Gravemind. What a shitty excuse for a piece of shitty shat.
Assassin's Creed
- What's he doing? Why's he climbing that?
- Town gaurds that can match almost all of your moves on the city rooftops are continually foiled by a curtain.
Force Unleashed
- Unbridled nerd-rage.
Wind Waker
- Reusing bosses...really? I guess it's kind of a throwback to older zeldas, but with there being so few dungeons as is, it felt really lazy.
Bioshock
- Big Daddy's go from "how the fuck am I going to kill this thing" to "frag-freeze-tripewire-run-repeat"
- Some guns really feel useless
- Some plasmids really feel useless
- The myriad of ways to kill an enemy suddenly don't seem as applicable when facing a large horde
- Enemies were fairly repetitive
edit:
GAH! I keep thinking of more
Mario Galaxy
- Stars? Again???
- The hub was the ugliest part of the game. It was functional, just not very pretty.
Twilight Princess - I adore this game but
- Pace up to and through the completion of the first dungeon felt way too damn slow.
- If you find a hidden chest, it either has rupies or a heart piece. No exceptions.
- A severe lack of optional side quests.
For my all time favorite game, I am not afraid to admit that it is Banjo Kazooie.
Back in the 90's my mom apparently signed me up for the Nintendo Club or whatever the American equivalent was, so every now and then they would send me a VHS hyping whatever big game was coming on the horizon. This kind gesture from my mom kind of came back to bite her, as she ended up buying me every game they succeeded to sell me on. Although I remember her thinking the technology behind Donkey Kong Country was kind of "cool" when they took a behind the scenes look at Nintendo of America, and here I am 14 years later doing the same kind of 3D modeling professionally... so maybe it was a good investment after all.
Anyway, once 3D hit it big time and Nintendo moved to the N64 I got another VHS from Rare, that same company hooked me not so many years before. Their new game took a lot of cues from Mario 64, but looked much better. I couldn't wait for the release and even sold a couple of my friends on it when I took the tape over to their house, acting as a sort of unlicensed solicitor for Nintendo. The game did not disappoint, and went far beyond whichever expectations I held for these kinds of things at age 12.
Simply put, to me it is one of the most "complete" games I have played, in that every element compliments the next and it is all held together in one great package. The characters were charming (released shortly before Rare wore out their welcome in the cute animal genre. Although kudos to them for taking the piss with Conker), and the game had a surprising amount of adult humor sprinkled throughout, the best happening near the end credits where upon being shown the secret ice key, Kazooie drops a little innuendo to where she wants the item, erm, inserted.
The levels all had their charm, in spite of being the standard platforming affair (jungle, snow, dessert, swamp), and did not exhaust you from collect-itis like their later games *coughDonkeyKong64* did. Every item had it's place and there were just enough of them to keep you interested in a world. They looked great as well! Rare is one of those companies that simply works voodoo magic with consoles and churns out some awesome looking stuff regardless of the hardware (Hell, Conker Live and Reloaded still looks like an Xbox360 game to this day), so it's no surprise that the levels where all colorful and atmospheric, doing away with the polygonal blockiness of platformers before it and creating some really organic looks, for the time anyway.
But what really made the game for me was the use of dynamic music. It really made Gruntilda's lair feel like some sort of Disney-esque theme park, keeping with the same overworld theme but switching instruments on the fly depending which area you where entering. Flutes and bird whistles for the woodland level; a sea shanty on the accordion for the pirate world; sleigh bells for snow town etc. Plus Grunties lair was a whole world of it's own, giving your plenty of room in which to explore.
The gameplay itself was very solid, taking pages from Mario 64 and going far beyond it, giving you wide array of moves to choose from, none of which went to waste. It was also nice that unlike Mario, BK never spit your out of the level each time you collected a Jiggy, the games version of the Castle Star. The bird and the bear where a very well utilized pair and I was sad to see these platforming elements removed from the three-quel.
I'm glad this got a re-release just recently on the 360 as it was really one of the top 10 games for the N64, although often overlooked on a console which was swamped with platforms, it's cutesy-ness probably not helping. It still holds up pretty great, even though I can now just speed run through every world.
As for my favorite game of 2007, that would have to go to FarCry 2 based simply on the amount of time I've plugged into it. Even though I still haven't seen the end of Niko's rise to the top of the criminal ladder in Grand Theft Auto, or played solo through Gears of War 2's campaign (did it co-op though and look forward to seeing a lot of those levels again in full screen), it's FarCry2 I keep going back to.
It didn't rub me the right way when I first started playing it, but after plunking a few hours into it it became pretty rewarding. Plus there is the whole allure of stalking the jungles with a dirty old sniper rifle. Kind of makes me wish someone would hurry up and make a Jurassic Park mod for it...
TL;DR - Banjo Kazooie is the shit and Far Cry 2 is a slice of alright.
I am highly irritated that there's 6, maybe 7 voice actors for about 100 humans with chat options.
That said, the ending:
Fawkes: Sorry friend, this is the culmination of your story, and I do not feel right robbing it from you.
I enjoyed Far Cry 2 quite a bit when I played it at my friends house, except one thing really rubbed me the wrong way. EVERY single person you seem to cross paths with on the road decides..."I'm gonna kill this motherfucker! I have no clue who he is or what he stands for but he must die!". I mean I know it's a wartorn region but even the guy driving the coupe, probably out for some groceries, isn't satisfied when I pull off the road to get out of his way. No siree! KILL THE MAN!
For a game with so much forced driving it's kind of annoying.
Then again I'm sure ESRB would love a game where you could gun down African villagers for blood diamonds. Who aren't zombies.
Blargh
Castle Crashers - so many of the characters are basically just clones of each other
Gears of War - the storyline is one cheesy action movie cliche after another and the only reason I pay any attention to it at all is because it has that "so bad it's actually good" quality
Super Smash Bros Brawl - worst netcode ever
Wii: 5024 6786 2934 2806 | Steam/XBL: Arcibi | FFXI: Arcibi / Bahamut
We're in complete agreement. I love the driving, it is a great break from the comba-GOD DAMNIT WHY DO YOU WANT ME TO KILL YOU!?!
Can't go 500 yards without somebody with a death wish popping up. Then again it would be too serene without something. Oh well.
The correct answer is Enrique. Enrique is what's wrong with SoA.
Herro, welcome to China!
Who?
After you get Gilder it is illegal to swap to another party member except when forced.
Since Espionage Points are only mildly useful (and no where near as useful as Science) this really rather sucks. That and great spies blow.
Majora's Mask: The combat is quite crap.
Steam - Minty D. Vision!
Origin/BF3 - MintyDVision
Having to walk every goddamn place to do a single goddamn thing. This isn't a big deal in between missions because it takes like five seconds, but if you're fighting a boss and want to edit your deck, you have to give up, edit your deck, and then walk back to the mission dude when they could have just put like an "Edit Arsenal" option after you died. Or even let you switch your deck or something.
Also those missions where you have to talk to a specific person. As much as I enjoy wandering around the same town for like 9 hours, I think it would be rad if I got all my missions for Tetsuya. Maybe with an exception for upcoming boss fights, but really.
Also the bosses are not fun to fight.
That said, good on the devs for patching it to version 1.2 without pay as their company fell apart.
It's not like if the game were deeper in it's customization console gamers would suddenly back away from it though. I don't get where that line of thinking comes from...
It just came at a time where Xbox fans where hungry for an RPG and really Ubisoft could have thrown us anything and we'd be all "nom nom nom!"
-The translation is shit, and as a result a story that might be described as only kinda-confusing becomes incomprehensible to a lot of people.
-Summon and sometimes spell animations are too long
-Random battles can get right annoying in some locations (I don't mind random battles in general, but the frequency coulda been turned down a bit)
-Inconsitency in FMVs. Sometimes there is good model Cloud, other times it's chibi model Cloud for no particular reason.
-World map graphics are pretty shit in general. Mods for the PC version rectify this.
-Cait Sith and Yuffie can go fuck a cactuar.
Do... Re... Mi... So... Fa.... Do... Re.... Do...
Forget it...
I enjoy the characters and voice acting (just the right ammount of action movie over-the-topness) but the story in the game is a mess, which again is bizarre because I know there was a decent effort put into crafting the backstory and universe.
It's too damn awesome. Also, it woulda been nice to have some more incentive to exploring the amazing landscape they created. More health/stamina is nice, but in no way necessary.
It worked out pretty well.
The problem is Enrique has that Justice Shield move which makes him so stupidly useful that you need to keep using him. Which leads me to my other complaint about SoA...
Gilder has the worst selection of moves. He's the best "character" but damn if his moves weren't crappy. I don't think I ever used Aura of Denial. All I ever used was Gunslinger. The Claudia couldn't even do enough damage to be worth it.
- Plays like a bad adventure game
- Controls are only good on Gamecube; 'good' being a very contextual term here
- Nostalgia protects it against most flaws; replaying makes the game's shortcomings clear
Starsiege: Tribes:
- Levels are generally pretty boring in design
- First game was excellent and the sequels were progressively worse
- Pretty much all other multiplayer games still pale in comparison to it, even after a decade
Half Life 2:
- First three hours are poorly paced
- The conclusion is pretty much Valve flipping the bird to its audience (at least until Episode 1)
Civlization IV:
- Impossible to play a proper game in less than ten hours (unless it's a duel)
- Multiplayer is both incredibly interesting and nearly impossible unless the game's speed is on high
- Playing a long session only to ultimately be crushed beneath the heel of another civlization is very common (and actually very probable)
LittleBigPlanet:
- Controls are pretty floaty
- Most user levels at this point come nowhere near the quality of the developer levels
- Most of the downloadable content is poorly priced (ie. $1.99 for a Street Fighter character outfit)
System Shock 2:
- A pain in the ass to get to work on modern machines
- Unforgiving design means every bullet counts (until endgame)
- Managing nanobots for hacking can induce save/load reliance
- Still unbelievably scary (could be good or bad depending on your outlook)
These are just a few games that come to mind immediately.
God, GTA IV had a shitty , shitty story. It was such an intriguing set up, then they fucked it all up after moving to Bohan.