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Video games that are indifferent your existence.
Cheezy
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
There is a type of video game that spans across multiple genres that I have found to be more atmospheric and engaging than any other. Although they feature mainly indie video games, there are a few larger titles that also share this attribute. That is, games that have no place for you in their world. When I say this, I am not talking about one dimensionally "difficult" games like Ninja Gaiden or Ikaruga, but games like Mount&Blade, Thief, X3, Stalker, any roguelike, or any of the grand strategy games from Paradox Interactive.
All of these games plunk you down into an incredibly foreign, dangerous, and incredibly complicated world that has no qualms about killing you, quickly and efficiently. The difference between these sorts of games and other more traditionally difficult games is that the aforementioned do not have pretenses at difficulty. This is just another day in the life for these games. Although it is unrelentingly difficult for you (mainly at the beginning), the same can be said for your AI counterpart. The world is congruous throughout. In other words, everyone plays by the same rules. This is the essence of this kind of game. It doesn't lead you along a path and it doesn't coddle you when you fall.
What this accomplishes is an actual sense of achievement and mastery of a game. For example, Morrowind has a world that was foreign and complex, but the clear progression of equipment and enemies of games like Oblivion or Fallout was not as present. With enough exploring (and not very much at that), your character could obtain endgame equipment quite easily. You could also fight endgame monsters from the get-go. In fact, as many people here have seen, you can beat the game with a starting character in 15 minutes.
Is there anyone else who enjoys this simultaneously both frustrating and rewarding genre of video games?
All of these games plunk you down into an incredibly foreign, dangerous, and incredibly complicated world that has no qualms about killing you, quickly and efficiently. The difference between these sorts of games and other more traditionally difficult games is that the aforementioned do not have pretenses at difficulty. This is just another day in the life for these games. Although it is unrelentingly difficult for you (mainly at the beginning), the same can be said for your AI counterpart. The world is congruous throughout. In other words, everyone plays by the same rules. This is the essence of this kind of game. It doesn't lead you along a path and it doesn't coddle you when you fall.
What this accomplishes is an actual sense of achievement and mastery of a game. For example, Morrowind has a world that was foreign and complex, but the clear progression of equipment and enemies of games like Oblivion or Fallout was not as present. With enough exploring (and not very much at that), your character could obtain endgame equipment quite easily. You could also fight endgame monsters from the get-go. In fact, as many people here have seen, you can beat the game with a starting character in 15 minutes.
Is there anyone else who enjoys this simultaneously both frustrating and rewarding genre of video games?
Cheezy on
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Notoriously buggy, fairly inconsistent, and weird design limitations. But holy shit. Finding a game where I can get sucked in, much akin to a good book, is something that I hold as the secondary objective to why I play games. The rare gems where everything meshes together just right to create a world, a real world, where you can forget about all the things going on around you in the real world, and just escape for a bit. Again, I reiterate, like a book.
Stalker did this for me. I wasn't necessarily Strelok, but I certainly was part of the world. The unforgiving quality the world took led to the ultimate fact that if you took one wrong step, or let your guard down, you'd be killed. Even when you're equipped with end-game gear, the stray headshot or the misstep into a killer anomaly was all it took to kill you. After all, you're still a squishy human.
System Shock 2, as well. I don't feel I need to explain why.
But once you master the gameplay and create the right army, you'll be untouchable.
I have heard that the game Pathologic has that similar kind of atmospheric difficulty, but no game does it better than STALKER. It is really amazing for that and I loved learning the ropes of its world.
It's all about going by procedure, and doing things right. You do things wrong, try to rush, someone ends up dead. The 9 out of 10 times that you die will be because you tried to rush things, and got shot by some punk with a gun. One bullet is enough to kill, doesn't matter who it's from, and it's just as true at the beginning as it is at the end.
You'll spend a lot of your time dying, but as you progress through the game you'll learn to understand just how and why you're supposed to react in various circumstances. You become more professional in your approach. To put this in perspective, it's very common to die a dozen, or even dozens of times on a single mission. The highest praise I can give this game is that this never got boring or frustrating for me because almost every time it happened, I knew it was because I had messed up, tried to do things quickly, and put myself in unnecessary danger. Random enemy placement means that you can't just learn the level off by rote and complete it that way. Every suspect can put you down permanently, and every room entry is a potential deathtrap.
Starting the game off, I was dying loads. By the time I finished the game, I had learned what I needed to know to respond to the situation, and I literally blitzed through the final two levels (in the addon pack) on my first try, in one sitting, without dying once.
What helps makes the game special is that apart from the gameplay mechanics, the levels are really well designed and with lots of character, based around real world locations (you go to places like home residences, office cubicle farms, hospitals, nightclubs, stuff like that). And unlike military games, this is a police game. The emphasis is on saving lives, even those of the suspects. You follow procedure, and arrest where possible. You mes up, someone dies. It's an unforgiving game, but with the rules as they're laid out, it's also surprisingly fair for it.
Also: Did anyone else read the thread title and think it was talking about sandbox style games that continue ticking over even if you're not doing anything?
These games put you in the role of command in historical/modern hypothetical situations, give you the tools that are appropriate to your level of command (squad, platoon, brigade, divisional, etc) and then throw you off the cliff. I love them because they have sent me to the history books and real world tactical and strategic doctrine over and again to find winning techniques, instead of gameFAQs. Also, I learn stuff about history and how these things tend to work in real life.
War in the Pacific will probably be my next purchase in this genre.
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=88299
I saw it as games that have a definite ruleset that applies to the player and the AI alike. In that sense I think my post fits the OP quite well, especially since Cheez mentioned Paradox strategy titles. Those tend to be wargames, like Hearts of Iron.
In a game like Korsun Pocket, any terrain hex that has been hit by artillery will have rubble/craters present. This hex will cost any unit that enters additional movement points. Whether it's a Soviet tank, Waffen SS Assault Gun, infantry unit, Soviet Cavalry Guard unit on horses or whatever. No special treatment for the AI. It's a solid world within its own ruleset where everyone gets the same brutal treatment. This is a constant in wargames, and I think it's a genre that fits into the idea of the OP very well.
I also think the Splinter Cell series is kinda challenging when you first get into it. You had to learn how to use your gadgets and get a feel for what the game will let you get away with before getting caught. Sneaking up or avoiding guards took some practice but became really fun once you knew what to do.
Another great game that I think had a sharp learning curve was Vagarant Story. That game took time to master simply because making your weapons was never really all that clear. Also, if you didn't make them right or had something with attributes that the enemies were immune to, you were in for a long battle. I got all the way to the end of the game and had to start over because at the most I was doing 10-15 points of damage on the final boss. I tried to survive as long as I could but it was impossible doing so little damage to him.
"Faster, Faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death." -HST
Yugioh. Dokapon Kingdom.
Just stop.
My contribution is Gothic I/II. NPCs have their own "schedules" or lives especially based on. NPC's can actually fight and kill each other using the same type of stats/armors/gear that govern how you fight. Anywhere you can go, an NPC can usually go (bad pathfinding not counted).
The example you gave with Morrowind and the equipment is true for Gothic as well. If you knew where to look or wanted to explore, you could get most of the non story "end game" gear. You could also run into very high level monsters who had no problem gobbling you up.
The only change is the chapters where major events happen. Some factions change, some places get slightly more dangerous but all have no problem destroying you.
This is what i miss from Morrowind but I guess Bethesday had to get rid of it to make the series more accessible. But dammit, having to hunt around for the final piece of Daedric armor in some cave with a waterfall and having to levitate up to get it made all that work the stuff of dreams. Hell, even getting daedric armor through the Gladiator mod was a epic because
The OP listed mostly every gametype I know that shared the aforementioned indifference, followed by S.T.A.L.K.E.R. topping it off.
I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss Ninja Gaiden, however. That game gives you monsters that aren't there for you to kill; they're there to kill you. Admittedly, they don't show indifference to Ryu's godly ninja skills, but they will try to kill you in ways that make you feel less invincible than in most games.
There's very few games to my mind that make you feel truly like you're just another cog in its universe and not some destined being that is meant to change the world. I don't know, does The Sims count towards this maybe?
Aces Wild is a pretty stellar game.
Blog, Playing Rules; Let's Play Demon's Souls; My Backlog
But anyway, the best games I can figure that fit are Dwarf Fortress, Nethack/all roguelikes, Eve Online, X3 (which the op mentioned already), and hardcore historical strategy and flight/car simulators.
I mean, I thought I was doing hella good with the game, and then it knocked me down like ten pegs by tearing out my eye to power the 'Eye' (lol get it?), and then leaving me defenseless, weaponless, and at a 1/4 of my health surrounded by fucking monsters. It was like the designers were smirking at me, going "Good luck champ."
Sure, the AI doesn't drop bases anywhere, because that would be waaaaaaay too crowded in a few hours, but there are tankers that go from place to place, and ships are persistent between sectors in the huge-ass universe. With an economy that is always following the persistent ships and trade routes.
If you build a base in the wrong place, it won't make money. Pirates will target any base they see fit, including yours or the AIs. It's possible to hear a report from a trader you employ from completely across the universe that they're being attacked.
You show up in your little junker, they inform you that there's a war on, and then you fly around like a fucking tourist for six hours while you try and figure out which jump gate to go through until a posse of cruisers appears on your radar and starts laser raping your ship's hull.
I'll have to dig out Stalker, I think, with the praise it's receiving here. I bought it a while ago but, since it crashed on me within the first two minutes, I shelved it and forgot about it!
Sort of like what would happen in Episode II if some random dick flew in and dropped a whole lot of missiles at Amidala's cruiser just for poops and giggles.
That's the one that did it for me.