From what I can remember, the problem with AP's crouching animation was that it looked like Mike was sliding across the room. It was one thing I noticed throughout AP, even though I liked the game and I think saying it's as good as MGS4's equivalent is laughable (though I don't think MGS4 had brilliant animation anyway, outside of the cutscenes anyway).
Well, you admit that it looks awkward, you just think it's meant to.
Pretty much.
I also think dual wielding SMG's makes a character look like a complete prat but it doesn't stop AP and other games from doing that either. I'd sooner take issue with that.
They should've taken a look at the Splinter Cell games, those have always had great crouch animations.
They also should've taken a look at SC's stealth mechanics, instead of just turning invisible for no fucking reason.
That I can pretty easily accept as just being an RPG abstraction. I can't really see the difference between that, and giving him the ability to see and shoot around corners (Seriously? We literally just accept in any TPS that if you're at a corner, you can see who's around it and where without looking, also for no freaking reason), or instantly take out several guys at once.
I mean in SC you duck into a tiny shadow and that turns you invisible, it's pretty much an abstraction itself. The same thing with the Thief series, I remember occasions where I would step into, say, a foot square shadowed patch on the ground in an otherwise well lit room, and suddenly nobody could freaking see me because I was "in the shadows".
It's also much easier to code a "timed invisibility button", than to code AI behaviors for different hex (block, whatever) placements of shadows in a level, not to mention putting shadows in at appropriate places when level designing, and spending six times the amount of time on lighting the environment. Let's not even talk about Q/A.
It'll be a loooooooooooooong time before we see another game with mechanics as tight as Chaos Theory. Goodbye Clint Hocking. I will miss you, forever.
Funnily enough, I believe it's the same engine abstraction. Chaos Theory was 2.5 Unreal, Alpha Protocol was 3.0 IIRC.
That wasn't an animation issue. The animation for it was fine. Most of the complaint was people just couldn't hack that "OMG he doesn't look super awesomes when crouch-walking!"
no, he looks like a human stapler or someone who's trying to win a backwards limbo competition, but that's not too big an issue
the biggest issue with AP is its absolutely psycho fanbase
and they had stiff competition getting up there, believe me
I think the bottom line is that GOTY awards are just as fair if they reward execution rather than innovation. Sometimes it's OK for a game to be just like something else only shinier and better.
For me goty is always something that has done something unique. A flawed interesting game I find more memorable than a something really polished that has been done a million times before. It is all personal though.
That wasn't an animation issue. The animation for it was fine. Most of the complaint was people just couldn't hack that "OMG he doesn't look super awesomes when crouch-walking!"
no, he looks like a human stapler or someone who's trying to win a backwards limbo competition, but that's not too big an issue
the biggest issue with AP is its absolutely psycho fanbase
and they had stiff competition getting up there, believe me
So I make one throwaway comment about how ME2 was a better game than AP. Someone asks me why I liked AP, I explain.
And now I'm part a psycho fanbase.
Grief. I should have just said that Alpha Protocol was crap like the rest of you.
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
edited December 2010
He never said that about you personally from what I saw.
It's also much easier to code a "timed invisibility button", than to code AI behaviors for different hex (block, whatever) placements of shadows in a level, not to mention putting shadows in at appropriate places when level designing, and spending six times the amount of time on lighting the environment. Let's not even talk about Q/A.
It'll be a loooooooooooooong time before we see another game with mechanics as tight as Chaos Theory. Goodbye Clint Hocking. I will miss you, forever.
Funnily enough, I believe it's the same engine abstraction. Chaos Theory was 2.5 Unreal, Alpha Protocol was 3.0 IIRC.
So it could have been done.
From what I understand, ramming light based stealth into an existing game engine is more difficult than it sounds, which is one major reason Ubisoft is still using UE2.5 for the Splinter Cell games.
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
He never said that about you personally from what I saw.
Could be my mistake I suppose, it's vaguely worded but that pretty much seemed to be the implication I was getting.
EDIT: Besides, it's clear that the ME fanbase are complete freaks.
Meh, most fanbases have their of rabid fans, though they're usually in the minority. Just that the crazy people tend to stand out more because they never shut up.
In all though I'm not sure I can really compare the two on similar grounds. Aside from the amazing ending, whenever I think back to ME2, what I remember about it is the action gameplay, mainly shooting stuff. When I think about Alpha Protocol, the things that stand out to me the most are the conversations. The constant back-and-forth between Thorton and Leland. Meeting Albatross for the first time. Marburg threatening you to leave Rome. The main VA did a pretty good job with the character, making him a snide deadpan snark, but coldly brutal as well when he had to be.
Whilst I'd never put AP on the same level as something like that, AP tries to make scenes out of some of its conversation pieces in a way that makes them interesting. The limited amount of time to choose conversation options and the way they play out just feels more involving. The conversations feel more natural, and that helps make the conversation pieces work so much better. You can't repeat the same question over and over again, and topics flow into each other naturally.
Also, seeing Thorton pummelling someone with Kenpo still looks awesome.
Well, you just convinced to at least take a look at Alpha Protocal. I've been wanting an awesome conversation system in an RPG forever.
Alpha Protocol ended up being a nice surprise for me. Picked it up during the Steam sale for cheap and ended up really enjoying it, rough spots and all. I have been off all week and ended up powering through it in a few days which I literally never do. Best 7.50 I've ever spent!
Mostly a lurked on these boards, but I wanted to toss in my 2 cents about the debate over whether 2010 was a good or bad year for releases.
To me, the last few years of gaming have been dominated by a trend towards near-yearly reiterations of excellent franchises, with very few new IPs or gameplay ideas being debuted. 2010 sort of perfected this trend. Modern Warfare 2, AC: Brotherhood, Civ 5, Bioshock 2 (sort of), Starcraft 2, Fallout: NV, Rock Band 3, & Mario Galaxy 2 are all really great games which have improved on their predecessors and earned great reviews, but I think we all can't help but feel a little bored by a gaming landscape that seems to be content to churn (admittedly high quality) rehashes and sequels rather than truly new games. So while it's probably true that there are probably more high quality games coming out than ever, it still feels like a *yawn* year for games.
For me, and apparently many others, ME 2 stood out because despite it's short turnover time after ME1, it felt like an entirely new game and really improved (or at least changed, some prefer the mechanics of ME1 I guess) almost every facet of the game, from atmospheric environments, to characterization of the teammates and most of all combat.
Other than ME2, the only other game that really devoured a lot of my time in 2010 was the 3.6.12 MediaVPs for Freespace Open. The game (Freespace 2) certainly didn't come out in 2010, but the amazing new graphics overhaul did, as well as lot of other gameplay features and campaigns, so it's my other choice for best of 2010. And no, I'm not involved with this project, in fact I discovered it on these forums about a year ago.
I played some fantastic games this year, including RDR, Dead Rising 2, Sonic Colors, etc. And by far, the most polished and well produced game I played this entire year has to be Rock Band 3.
I've been in love with the music game genre since Frequency hit the shelves, and I've followed Harmonix's career for almost 15 years now. When guitar hero was coming out, I thought it'd remain niche but would be worth following. How wrong I was. When they released Rock Band, I thought, for sure, this must be the culmination of what they began with Guitar Hero. The relatively lackluster Rockband 2, Rockband Beatles, and Rockband Greenday kinda drove the point home - that the rockband package had no room to grow outside of themed music packs and UI upgrades.
So enter Rockband 3. I've played every single guitar game out there since falling in love with guitar hero. I flat out love these types of games. Yet even I am feeling fatigue. So for Rockband 3 to completely reinvigorate my passion for these kinds of games, it has to do something extraordinary. And RB3 does.\
From first menu to the deepest tutorial, Rockband 3 is a class product. It exudes polish at every corner - it's one of the most solid games I've ever played. It's what you'd hope for out of a developer which has been honing its skills at the same genre for 15 years. It's not just the music portions of the game which are well done - the entire package feels complete. Harmonix has become more than just a good music developer, they're one of the best video game developers period.
Just like I felt with the original rockband, I feel like rockband 3 is a culmination. I seriously have no idea where the series can go from here. It feels like the apex of the music genre - the logical conclusion for something that has been building for a decade. They say the music genre is dying, and if so, Rockband 3 is an incredible and fitting send off to one of my favorite genres from the people who arguably had more of a hand in it's creation than any other developer. The best part of Rockband 3 is that, if they never release another game, by the time you're done, you will have skills necessary to continue exploring your love of guitar.
Rockband 3 is very easily my GOTY. It's simply one of the best games ever created. It's pretty much the ultimate casual game - I'd almost classify it as edutainment or a application or program if it wasn't for its regular mode. It seems like it belongs more in classification which include Wii Fit - "games" people buy not for competition, but for what it can offer them. Except, instead of learning faggy shit like yoga, you're learning Folsom Prison Blues and Yoshimi battles the pink robots. Awesome.
Rock Band 3 has been mentioned a few times now. Is it that different from the first two? (I haven't played it.)
Depends on how much you're willing to spend. Rock Band 3 is like 2 complete games in 1. If you're not looking to upgrade any of the instruments, then it's still the smoothest, most polished rythm game ever made. Think everything you saw in the previous guitar hero or rock band games polished to a shine. The new UI is slick, one of the best UIs I've seen in a game. UI design is often over looked, but RB3 deserves special acclaim for how smooth it's made managing the thousands of songs and hundreds of filters/options. You never have to hunt for something, you never have to figure out how to do something, everything is just intuitive.
The actual core music portion, the kind you've been playing since Guitar Hero, is the same as it always was, just with an exceptionally killer soundtrack and great note charts. And, while I don't own it yet, I hear the keyboard is awesome.
But where Rockband 3 really shines is in it's optional pro mode. This is the mode that requires $150 guitars and drum accessories, and it feels like an entire game all of it's own. Like, everything rock band has to offer without the pro instruments, it has probably double to offer for the pros. We're talking hundreds and hundreds of hours of tutorials, videos, practice. It stops becoming a game at this point and starts becoming more like edutainment - but the best edutainment I've ever played. It will actually, literally teach you to play an instrument. But it does so in a way that still feels like rock band. So all those times when you'd boot up the game for 20 or so minutes and dick around, now when you're doing that you're walking away with an actual skill.
In terms of how much there is to do in Rock Band 3, it's an entire class above previous music games. The jump from Rockband 1/2 to Rockband 3 is about as big as the jump from Guitar Hero to Rockband.
EDIT: I'll go one step further and say that Rockband 3 continues the fantastic tradition that video games have with trilogies. Historically, the best games in classic trilogies have been the third installment, where everything becomes refined to a point of perfection. This is a classic formula that all great games have followed - The first game is revolutionary, the second is a bit of a rehash, and the third is a magnificent explosion of refinement, creativity, and passion. Mario went through this, Metroid did as well. Sonic the Hedgehog obviously went through this with Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Now Rockband has gone through this.
Rockband 3 is the best music game ever.
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
edited December 2010
Sadly, DJ MAX Portable 3 disproves your theory. It removed many modes that made Portable 2 a worldwide hit(it was imported like crazy, and was Korean exclusive), has a mediocre AND short-lived songlist, and minimal difficulty.
Portable 3 was released in Korea and the US almost simultaneously, and had a very limited release. (Game Stop didn't even carry it.)
With good reason, apparently.
I also love Frequency to death, and I've been with the music game genre since, oh, DDR's debut in '98.
I second Deadly Premonition as my game of the year.
Also because of these boards I picked up Nier today, and want to start it SO SO BADLY, but Im halfway through Just Cause 2 and started Brutal Legend last night, so I need to finish ONE of those two before I let myself start a third game.
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All sequels for me this year, but I think that's a trend of the industry as a whole. My favorites, in declining order:
Mass Effect 2 - a massive improvement on the original, which was already quite good. Great gameplay flow combined with a compelling story and fresh characters. One of Bioware's finest, and my GOTY.
Fifa 11 - Year in and year out, the team behind FIFA steps their game up. This year's edition was the most tactical yet, nerfing the ping-pong counterattacking strategy of previous editions. Besides that, though, FIFA is one of those sports games that is constantly being finetuned, to the point where the list of improvements/changes end up being too subtle to distinguish individually, but taken as a whole change the game completely. FIFA 11 just feels right, which I think is the highest praise I can give it.
Civ V - Besides the fact that it runs like shit on my Mac, this is a great, great game. I love the simplification that went into this edition. Everything -- from the UI to the tech tree -- feels clean and purposeful. Same addicting gameplay, with better combat and hexes instead of a grid. I'm glad this is the direction the franchise is going, but I know there are some detractors that don't like the changes. Fuck 'em, I say. This game is great!
I second Deadly Premonition as my game of the year.
Also because of these boards I picked up Nier today, and want to start it SO SO BADLY, but Im halfway through Just Cause 2 and started Brutal Legend last night, so I need to finish ONE of those two before I let myself start a third game.
Funnily enough, I rented Nier and Just Cause 2 earlier this year. Nier more so out of morbid curiosity and JC because I thought I would really enjoy it. I ended up playing the fuck out of Nier and JC2 was played very little in comparison.
For better or worse, both Nier and Deadly Premonition were interesting games in that they provided me with some really quirky and different experiences. Say what you will about their gameplay, but I remember them most vividly when I look back on the year because they were so refreshing. So I do think they deserve some sort of honorable mention this year.
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
edited December 2010
It's a shame Sakura Wars bombed so hard(not that I didn't see it coming), because the series has been around for a decade+, and NIS took a big risk in finally bringing it here. Both the SRPG and visual novel segments are fun.
I second Deadly Premonition as my game of the year.
Also because of these boards I picked up Nier today, and want to start it SO SO BADLY, but Im halfway through Just Cause 2 and started Brutal Legend last night, so I need to finish ONE of those two before I let myself start a third game.
Funnily enough, I rented Nier and Just Cause 2 earlier this year. Nier more so out of morbid curiosity and JC because I thought I would really enjoy it. I ended up playing the fuck out of Nier and JC2 was played very little in comparison.
For better or worse, both Nier and Deadly Premonition were interesting games in that they provided me with some really quirky and different experiences. Say what you will about their gameplay, but I remember them most vividly when I look back on the year because they were so refreshing. So I do think they deserve some sort of honorable mention this year.
Yeah - I recognize your avatar as someone who I saw in both the Nier and Deadly Premonition threads that eventually sold me on Nier (despite reading, but not comprehending, some Nier spoilers out of morbid curiosity).
It's sad that right now I'm kind of ignoring the fantastic Just Cause 2, and powering through Brutal Legend (which I absolutely love) because I'm so damn curious about Nier. I have a horrible habit of never finishing a game once I put it down, so I really am trying to get through this before Nier - but the point of games is to enjoy and relax, and Im currently loving BL, but not really enjoying it because I keep looking over at the shelf, so I may just cave and start Nier now.
But I digress - I'm excited to have the Deadly Premonition/GOTY discussion here or in the more 'official' thread, because it really did bring a whole hell of a lot to the table that I've never seen before. I'm still surprised at the amount of people who say "Oh, you liked it ironically, right?" or call it "So bad it's good". It gets that reputation simply because of its clunky controls and dated graphics - which is the result of a small development team and the fact that it's a "budget" title. I mean, many forget it sold for $19.99 on day 1. I've payed 3 times as much for games that had much, much less value (in terms of play time, content and bugs).
It just bothers me because it's the age old argument about where graphics and stuff should factor in what makes a great game. If Deadly Premonition was released on the Dreamcast or PS2, it would be an instant classic. But because it's on disc and on the 360 (which makes me wonder if it would be cut more slack if it was an arcade game) it's immediately overlooked for it's shitty combat and graphics.
Although, yes, the combat is shitty and that has nothing to do with when it was released, I guess. But man - the side missions, the town, the people - all better and more original than anything Ive played this generation. I still love that by doing good old fashioned detective work, and simply following people and noticing when something's just not right with someone's routine, you could totally figure out the major players.
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I actually just ordered Nier (for a cheap price). Everything pre-release made the game sound laughably bad and I criticised it quite a bit but my curiosity has been piqued by all the enthusiasm people around here seem to have for it.
I ordered Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom as well (again for a cheap price). I'm not sure entirely why, it just seemed kinda interesting and I guess I need an ICO/SotC ripoff to tide me over until the Collection's release in a few months.
I might switch Starcraft II around a bit before mmc's voting starts, but I guess I more or less have things in order.
1. Mass Effect 2 (360,PC)
2. Fallout: New Vegas (360,PC,PS3)
3. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)
4. God of War 3 (PS3)
5. Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (360,PC,PS3)
6. Red Dead Redemption (360,PS3)
7. Darksiders (360,PC,PS3)
8. Starcraft 2 (PC)
9. Game Dev Story (Android,iPhone)
10. 3D Dot Game Heroes (PS3)
Games I played but didn’t care for:
1. Metroid: Other M (Wii): I thought this game was aggressively piss poor. Hated it.
2. Monster Hunter Tri (Wii): Maybe there’s a fun game I’ll discover some time in the future here, but I played about three hours and it never felt like anything other than a clunkier, vastly uglier Demon’s Souls.
3. Final Fantasy 13 (PS3): Ugh. Gorgeous, but that’s it. Boring as hell.
4. Bayonetta (360,PS3): Put in about 2 hours or so, ran into some dragon thing that kept killing me with no space at all to maneuver, and I just lost interest. I’m sure I could beat it easily enough, but the game just didn’t grab me.
5. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (PC): For some reason, I just couldn’t get over the clunky way the guns move and feel in this game. It felt like it was half done or a fan project or something, everything about the game’s feel came off as vaguely cheap to me.
And man, there's TONS of games I want to play from this year but didn't get around to: Civ V, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, Donkey Kong, Kirby, 007, (Wii games are easy for me to wait on I guess), Enslaved...gah! Too much! My poor, poor wallet.
This has been a really bizarre year. I probably played a wider variety of games this year than ever before, although I played for far less time. I also ended up hating a lot of games that I thought I'd love. And I mean a lot of games. Mass Effect 2, Red Dead Redemption, Alan Wake, Limbo, Reach, Metro 2033, Puzzle Quest 2 and Enslaved were all perfect fits for me, and I really tried to like them (I even got 1255/1255 on Mass Effect 2, for crying out loud), but I didn't have fun playing them, and I couldn't put them on a game of the year list. There are other games, like New Vegas, that I'm sort of afraid to play, because I should love it, but I just don't know anymore.
The only game released this year that I think I've played enough to put it on a list would be Bioshock 2, which is also strange, because I chastised the game for coming from another developer when it was announced, and only picked it up because it was cheap. Pac-Man CEDX, Minecraft, and Amnesia will probably make the list too, but I haven't had enough time to really devote to them.
Did anyone else have a year like this, where they really couldn't find very much to like?
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I ended up ignoring it anyway but it really does look kinda dumb.
They also should've taken a look at SC's stealth mechanics, instead of just turning invisible for no fucking reason.
Pretty much.
I also think dual wielding SMG's makes a character look like a complete prat but it doesn't stop AP and other games from doing that either. I'd sooner take issue with that.
That I can pretty easily accept as just being an RPG abstraction. I can't really see the difference between that, and giving him the ability to see and shoot around corners (Seriously? We literally just accept in any TPS that if you're at a corner, you can see who's around it and where without looking, also for no freaking reason), or instantly take out several guys at once.
I mean in SC you duck into a tiny shadow and that turns you invisible, it's pretty much an abstraction itself. The same thing with the Thief series, I remember occasions where I would step into, say, a foot square shadowed patch on the ground in an otherwise well lit room, and suddenly nobody could freaking see me because I was "in the shadows".
:^::^::^:
It'll be a loooooooooooooong time before we see another game with mechanics as tight as Chaos Theory. Goodbye Clint Hocking. I will miss you, forever.
Funnily enough, I believe it's the same engine abstraction. Chaos Theory was 2.5 Unreal, Alpha Protocol was 3.0 IIRC.
So it could have been done.
no, he looks like a human stapler or someone who's trying to win a backwards limbo competition, but that's not too big an issue
the biggest issue with AP is its absolutely psycho fanbase
and they had stiff competition getting up there, believe me
For me goty is always something that has done something unique. A flawed interesting game I find more memorable than a something really polished that has been done a million times before. It is all personal though.
So I make one throwaway comment about how ME2 was a better game than AP. Someone asks me why I liked AP, I explain.
And now I'm part a psycho fanbase.
Grief. I should have just said that Alpha Protocol was crap like the rest of you.
Could be my mistake I suppose, it's vaguely worded but that pretty much seemed to be the implication I was getting.
EDIT: Besides, it's clear that the ME fanbase are complete freaks.
From what I understand, ramming light based stealth into an existing game engine is more difficult than it sounds, which is one major reason Ubisoft is still using UE2.5 for the Splinter Cell games.
Meh, most fanbases have their of rabid fans, though they're usually in the minority. Just that the crazy people tend to stand out more because they never shut up.
Although the Tali fanfiction they post in the ME thread is rather unnerving.
Either way, this doesn't have much to do with the thread anyway.
To me, the last few years of gaming have been dominated by a trend towards near-yearly reiterations of excellent franchises, with very few new IPs or gameplay ideas being debuted. 2010 sort of perfected this trend. Modern Warfare 2, AC: Brotherhood, Civ 5, Bioshock 2 (sort of), Starcraft 2, Fallout: NV, Rock Band 3, & Mario Galaxy 2 are all really great games which have improved on their predecessors and earned great reviews, but I think we all can't help but feel a little bored by a gaming landscape that seems to be content to churn (admittedly high quality) rehashes and sequels rather than truly new games. So while it's probably true that there are probably more high quality games coming out than ever, it still feels like a *yawn* year for games.
For me, and apparently many others, ME 2 stood out because despite it's short turnover time after ME1, it felt like an entirely new game and really improved (or at least changed, some prefer the mechanics of ME1 I guess) almost every facet of the game, from atmospheric environments, to characterization of the teammates and most of all combat.
Other than ME2, the only other game that really devoured a lot of my time in 2010 was the 3.6.12 MediaVPs for Freespace Open. The game (Freespace 2) certainly didn't come out in 2010, but the amazing new graphics overhaul did, as well as lot of other gameplay features and campaigns, so it's my other choice for best of 2010. And no, I'm not involved with this project, in fact I discovered it on these forums about a year ago.
I've been in love with the music game genre since Frequency hit the shelves, and I've followed Harmonix's career for almost 15 years now. When guitar hero was coming out, I thought it'd remain niche but would be worth following. How wrong I was. When they released Rock Band, I thought, for sure, this must be the culmination of what they began with Guitar Hero. The relatively lackluster Rockband 2, Rockband Beatles, and Rockband Greenday kinda drove the point home - that the rockband package had no room to grow outside of themed music packs and UI upgrades.
So enter Rockband 3. I've played every single guitar game out there since falling in love with guitar hero. I flat out love these types of games. Yet even I am feeling fatigue. So for Rockband 3 to completely reinvigorate my passion for these kinds of games, it has to do something extraordinary. And RB3 does.\
From first menu to the deepest tutorial, Rockband 3 is a class product. It exudes polish at every corner - it's one of the most solid games I've ever played. It's what you'd hope for out of a developer which has been honing its skills at the same genre for 15 years. It's not just the music portions of the game which are well done - the entire package feels complete. Harmonix has become more than just a good music developer, they're one of the best video game developers period.
Just like I felt with the original rockband, I feel like rockband 3 is a culmination. I seriously have no idea where the series can go from here. It feels like the apex of the music genre - the logical conclusion for something that has been building for a decade. They say the music genre is dying, and if so, Rockband 3 is an incredible and fitting send off to one of my favorite genres from the people who arguably had more of a hand in it's creation than any other developer. The best part of Rockband 3 is that, if they never release another game, by the time you're done, you will have skills necessary to continue exploring your love of guitar.
Rockband 3 is very easily my GOTY. It's simply one of the best games ever created. It's pretty much the ultimate casual game - I'd almost classify it as edutainment or a application or program if it wasn't for its regular mode. It seems like it belongs more in classification which include Wii Fit - "games" people buy not for competition, but for what it can offer them. Except, instead of learning faggy shit like yoga, you're learning Folsom Prison Blues and Yoshimi battles the pink robots. Awesome.
Depends on how much you're willing to spend. Rock Band 3 is like 2 complete games in 1. If you're not looking to upgrade any of the instruments, then it's still the smoothest, most polished rythm game ever made. Think everything you saw in the previous guitar hero or rock band games polished to a shine. The new UI is slick, one of the best UIs I've seen in a game. UI design is often over looked, but RB3 deserves special acclaim for how smooth it's made managing the thousands of songs and hundreds of filters/options. You never have to hunt for something, you never have to figure out how to do something, everything is just intuitive.
The actual core music portion, the kind you've been playing since Guitar Hero, is the same as it always was, just with an exceptionally killer soundtrack and great note charts. And, while I don't own it yet, I hear the keyboard is awesome.
But where Rockband 3 really shines is in it's optional pro mode. This is the mode that requires $150 guitars and drum accessories, and it feels like an entire game all of it's own. Like, everything rock band has to offer without the pro instruments, it has probably double to offer for the pros. We're talking hundreds and hundreds of hours of tutorials, videos, practice. It stops becoming a game at this point and starts becoming more like edutainment - but the best edutainment I've ever played. It will actually, literally teach you to play an instrument. But it does so in a way that still feels like rock band. So all those times when you'd boot up the game for 20 or so minutes and dick around, now when you're doing that you're walking away with an actual skill.
In terms of how much there is to do in Rock Band 3, it's an entire class above previous music games. The jump from Rockband 1/2 to Rockband 3 is about as big as the jump from Guitar Hero to Rockband.
EDIT: I'll go one step further and say that Rockband 3 continues the fantastic tradition that video games have with trilogies. Historically, the best games in classic trilogies have been the third installment, where everything becomes refined to a point of perfection. This is a classic formula that all great games have followed - The first game is revolutionary, the second is a bit of a rehash, and the third is a magnificent explosion of refinement, creativity, and passion. Mario went through this, Metroid did as well. Sonic the Hedgehog obviously went through this with Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Now Rockband has gone through this.
Rockband 3 is the best music game ever.
Portable 3 was released in Korea and the US almost simultaneously, and had a very limited release. (Game Stop didn't even carry it.)
With good reason, apparently.
I also love Frequency to death, and I've been with the music game genre since, oh, DDR's debut in '98.
If not, there. I did.
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It's great in the same way Resident Evil 4 was great. As long as you're in on the gag, it's amazing. Don't take it too seriously.
Also because of these boards I picked up Nier today, and want to start it SO SO BADLY, but Im halfway through Just Cause 2 and started Brutal Legend last night, so I need to finish ONE of those two before I let myself start a third game.
Mass Effect 2 - a massive improvement on the original, which was already quite good. Great gameplay flow combined with a compelling story and fresh characters. One of Bioware's finest, and my GOTY.
Fifa 11 - Year in and year out, the team behind FIFA steps their game up. This year's edition was the most tactical yet, nerfing the ping-pong counterattacking strategy of previous editions. Besides that, though, FIFA is one of those sports games that is constantly being finetuned, to the point where the list of improvements/changes end up being too subtle to distinguish individually, but taken as a whole change the game completely. FIFA 11 just feels right, which I think is the highest praise I can give it.
Civ V - Besides the fact that it runs like shit on my Mac, this is a great, great game. I love the simplification that went into this edition. Everything -- from the UI to the tech tree -- feels clean and purposeful. Same addicting gameplay, with better combat and hexes instead of a grid. I'm glad this is the direction the franchise is going, but I know there are some detractors that don't like the changes. Fuck 'em, I say. This game is great!
Other than the gameplay being a shitton of fun in RE4 of course.
Funnily enough, I rented Nier and Just Cause 2 earlier this year. Nier more so out of morbid curiosity and JC because I thought I would really enjoy it. I ended up playing the fuck out of Nier and JC2 was played very little in comparison.
For better or worse, both Nier and Deadly Premonition were interesting games in that they provided me with some really quirky and different experiences. Say what you will about their gameplay, but I remember them most vividly when I look back on the year because they were so refreshing. So I do think they deserve some sort of honorable mention this year.
Gamer Tag: LeeWay0
PSN: Leeway0
Yeah - I recognize your avatar as someone who I saw in both the Nier and Deadly Premonition threads that eventually sold me on Nier (despite reading, but not comprehending, some Nier spoilers out of morbid curiosity).
It's sad that right now I'm kind of ignoring the fantastic Just Cause 2, and powering through Brutal Legend (which I absolutely love) because I'm so damn curious about Nier. I have a horrible habit of never finishing a game once I put it down, so I really am trying to get through this before Nier - but the point of games is to enjoy and relax, and Im currently loving BL, but not really enjoying it because I keep looking over at the shelf, so I may just cave and start Nier now.
But I digress - I'm excited to have the Deadly Premonition/GOTY discussion here or in the more 'official' thread, because it really did bring a whole hell of a lot to the table that I've never seen before. I'm still surprised at the amount of people who say "Oh, you liked it ironically, right?" or call it "So bad it's good". It gets that reputation simply because of its clunky controls and dated graphics - which is the result of a small development team and the fact that it's a "budget" title. I mean, many forget it sold for $19.99 on day 1. I've payed 3 times as much for games that had much, much less value (in terms of play time, content and bugs).
It just bothers me because it's the age old argument about where graphics and stuff should factor in what makes a great game. If Deadly Premonition was released on the Dreamcast or PS2, it would be an instant classic. But because it's on disc and on the 360 (which makes me wonder if it would be cut more slack if it was an arcade game) it's immediately overlooked for it's shitty combat and graphics.
Although, yes, the combat is shitty and that has nothing to do with when it was released, I guess. But man - the side missions, the town, the people - all better and more original than anything Ive played this generation. I still love that by doing good old fashioned detective work, and simply following people and noticing when something's just not right with someone's routine, you could totally figure out the major players.
I ordered Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom as well (again for a cheap price). I'm not sure entirely why, it just seemed kinda interesting and I guess I need an ICO/SotC ripoff to tide me over until the Collection's release in a few months.
1. Mass Effect 2 (360,PC)
2. Fallout: New Vegas (360,PC,PS3)
3. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)
4. God of War 3 (PS3)
5. Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (360,PC,PS3)
6. Red Dead Redemption (360,PS3)
7. Darksiders (360,PC,PS3)
8. Starcraft 2 (PC)
9. Game Dev Story (Android,iPhone)
10. 3D Dot Game Heroes (PS3)
Games I played but didn’t care for:
1. Metroid: Other M (Wii): I thought this game was aggressively piss poor. Hated it.
2. Monster Hunter Tri (Wii): Maybe there’s a fun game I’ll discover some time in the future here, but I played about three hours and it never felt like anything other than a clunkier, vastly uglier Demon’s Souls.
3. Final Fantasy 13 (PS3): Ugh. Gorgeous, but that’s it. Boring as hell.
4. Bayonetta (360,PS3): Put in about 2 hours or so, ran into some dragon thing that kept killing me with no space at all to maneuver, and I just lost interest. I’m sure I could beat it easily enough, but the game just didn’t grab me.
5. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (PC): For some reason, I just couldn’t get over the clunky way the guns move and feel in this game. It felt like it was half done or a fan project or something, everything about the game’s feel came off as vaguely cheap to me.
And man, there's TONS of games I want to play from this year but didn't get around to: Civ V, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, Donkey Kong, Kirby, 007, (Wii games are easy for me to wait on I guess), Enslaved...gah! Too much! My poor, poor wallet.
Didn't I see you say like two months ago that Alan Wake may be your favorite game ever?
And now DP has beat it out just in the year?
The only game released this year that I think I've played enough to put it on a list would be Bioshock 2, which is also strange, because I chastised the game for coming from another developer when it was announced, and only picked it up because it was cheap. Pac-Man CEDX, Minecraft, and Amnesia will probably make the list too, but I haven't had enough time to really devote to them.
Did anyone else have a year like this, where they really couldn't find very much to like?
2008 was kinda lame overall
Nonsense I say!
PSN:Hakira__
So
Yeah, that's the one