general gaming topic

Edit history:

J_SNAKE: 2011-12-14 12:29:37 am

2011-12-14 12:28:43 am

Metroid just didn't get better after Super Metroid, it got worse. I believe a good Metroid-game would get enough attention, that would for sure not be a boring fps or low-points-hand-held.

tomatobob

2011-12-14 12:33:48 am

One shall stand, one shall ball.

Quote from Prime Hunter:

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned Arkham City even though I've yet to play that either but I want to.

Cause everyone knows it''s the real Game of the Year. Also century.

tomatobob

2011-12-14 01:01:48 am

One shall stand, one shall ball.

Actually regarding Skyward Sword, maybe it's because I've been playing New Vegas at the same time but much as I've enjoyed it so far it sort of feels like a game that kinda wants to be like a Skyrim/Recent Fallout type game but doesn't really know how to go about it. Like it gives you a bunch of loot and the ability to place waypoints to go sidequesting or whatever but just sort of misses something about how to make it really click namely the loot is sort of a pain in the ass to get and I kinda don't want to pick it up after loadign a save because I fucking know what it is I've got three shut up asshole, fuck! Like it's a poor man's Western RPG. So an actually playable Monster Hunter, I guess.

Look, what I'm trying to say is that Skyward Sword would be better if I could explode a dude's with the slingshot.

Opium

2011-12-14 01:06:28 am

Quote from J_SNAKE:

What do you think, is it better or worse to design those puzzles more cleverly and challenging. Or is the difficulty just right, since there are people who don't consider them puzzles. I also think that in games many people don't like puzzles which obviously look like puzzles. Or does someone think Lufia felt right to them?

I think the perfect amount of difficulty credits the cleverness of the puzzle. It shouldn't be so easy as to be boring, nor should it be so hard that it's aggravating. It shouldn't allow for much trial and error, and should be solvable after some logical thinking. Even better are the solutions where the puzzle seems overwhelming, but when tackled bit by bit the solution slowly comes into view. I love having a big sigh (puzzle-solving orgasm) with a smile, then can't help but think about the whole puzzle at the end and marvel how carefully put together it was. The good ones also make it clear that they really spent a good amount of time on it used test subjects to be sure that it didn't have any major flaws that half of the people ended up exposing. A good dungeon is one giant puzzle with a bunch of little puzzles hidden inside. The items in zelda games add not just action, but new elements to the puzzles. I love how acquiring a new item in a dungeon suddenly opens new possibilities in the puzzles, and not just opens the next door or pulls you to the next platform. The masks in MM were what made those puzzles so great, hence the whole game being the shit.

[quote="J_SNAKE"]What do you think, is it better or worse to design those puzzles more cleverly and challenging. Or is the difficulty just right, since there are people who don't consider them puzzles. I also think that in games many people don't like puzzles which obviously look like puzzles. Or does someone think Lufia felt right to them?[/quote]

I think the perfect amount of difficulty credits the cleverness of the puzzle. It shouldn't be so easy as to be boring, nor should it be so hard that it's aggravating.  It shouldn't allow for much trial and error, and should be solvable after some logical thinking.  Even better are the solutions where the puzzle seems overwhelming, but when tackled bit by bit the solution slowly comes into view.  I love having a big sigh (puzzle-solving orgasm) with a smile, then can't help but think about the whole puzzle at the end and marvel how carefully put together it was.  The good ones also make it clear that they really spent a good amount of time on it used test subjects to be sure that it didn't have any major flaws that half of the people ended up exposing.  A good dungeon is one giant puzzle with a bunch of little puzzles hidden inside. The items in zelda games add not just action, but new elements to the puzzles. I love how acquiring a new item in a dungeon suddenly opens new possibilities in the puzzles, and not just opens the next door or pulls you to the next platform.  The masks in MM were what made those puzzles so great, hence the whole game being the shit.

Opium

2011-12-14 01:09:06 am

I'm kinda confused about something. I ended up getting a new wii last week. It was the black one that came bundled with NSMB. It has no ports for GCN controllers or memory cards, yet when you open up the data management menu it asks if you want to look at wii save data or GCN save data. Does it play GCN games or not? I don't have the instruction book atm, and I'm scared to just insert a small GCN disc into the drive if I'm not sure it was designed for it.

arkarian

Edit history:

arkarian: 2011-12-14 01:09:59 am

2011-12-14 01:09:43 am

red chamber dream

it doesn't. i assume there's only one version of the wii system menu atm because nintendo is lazy.

Opium

Edit history:

Opium: 2011-12-14 01:13:57 am

2011-12-14 01:13:15 am

That's so strange. The amount of time and effort that went into designing the new hardware would seem much more involved than simply changing the data mgmt software.

If you're right then I hope they quietly correct that shit on the next system update.

Poision Envy

2011-12-14 02:33:39 am

Club 27 Goals

huh weird, my black wii and GCN ports on top and stuff. Wonder why Nintendo decided to go and shit it up by removing things.

Poision Envy

2011-12-14 02:40:34 am

Club 27 Goals

When it comes to game of the year I'd be very impressed if Skyrim doesn't take that. sites like ign are hardly reputable at all with their idiotic number rating system. Minecraft got a what, 98/100? And that game is utter shit especially when it is literally loaded with bugs. While on their Skyrim review they knocked off tons of points for the bugs, which are very often quite minor. In fact, there's a bug in Skyward Sword that Nintendo has announced it won't be fixing at all, and it completely breaks the game to the point where you can't progress any further because of it. But does any of the number-rating sites knock points off SS for it? Of course not.

I didn't even get into Skyrim as much as I would have liked to. I had a lot more fun with Bastion and lots of other games this year, but with Skyrim's epic size and just amount of story and shit to do it certainly deserves it.

arkarian

Edit history:

arkarian: 2011-12-14 02:50:54 am

2011-12-14 02:50:16 am

red chamber dream

huh? ign doesn't even use a 100-point scale anymore, they use a 20-point scale. i'm actually quite fond of reading stuff on ign but mostly because i listen to most of their podcasts. they're hosted by their editors who are very funny and insightful people. the writing on ign is very casual, but it's supposed to be that way. most of their review scores are still much higher than what i'd rate games, but oh well.

also, ign gave skyrim a 9.5 - their second highest possible rating. what are these "tons of points" you're talking about?

besides, reviewers don't start every game at a 10 and then "knock off" points - particularly on ign, final review scores are subjective and unrelated to the individual categories they also rate. it's just the reviewer's overall impression of the game squeezed roughly into a number.
if you want to know what they really thought of the game, read the fucking review rather than just scrolling down and looking at the numbers.

sorry, it just kind of bugs me when people criticize things without knowing what they're talking about. just because ign used to blow doesn't mean it still does. and there are plenty of other good game websites out there too. games radar for instance. their podcast is fucking great too.

[url=http://pc.ign.com/objects/092/092086.html]huh?[/url] ign doesn't even use a 100-point scale anymore, they use a 20-point scale. i'm actually quite fond of reading stuff on ign but mostly because i listen to most of their podcasts. they're hosted by their editors who are very funny and insightful people. the writing on ign is very casual, but it's supposed to be that way. most of their review scores are still much higher than what i'd rate games, but oh well.

also, ign gave skyrim a 9.5 - their second highest possible rating. what are these "tons of points" you're talking about?

besides, reviewers don't start every game at a 10 and then "knock off" points - particularly on ign, final review scores are subjective and unrelated to the individual categories they also rate. it's just the reviewer's overall impression of the game squeezed roughly into a number.
if you want to know what they really thought of the game, read the fucking review rather than just scrolling down and looking at the numbers.

sorry, it just kind of bugs me when people criticize things without knowing what they're talking about. just because ign used to blow doesn't mean it still does. and there are plenty of other good game websites out there too. games radar for instance. their podcast is fucking great too.

ryu

Edit history:

ryu: 2011-12-14 02:54:21 am

2011-12-14 02:53:49 am

Quote from Opium:

SS isn't perfect, but is it really that bad? It's poised for GOTY for crissakes.

huh, it's not a bad game. it just really pales in comparison to the n64 zeldas, and i believe the devs at retro might actually look back and think about what made zelda so great in the first place.

arkarian

Edit history:

arkarian: 2011-12-14 02:55:05 am

2011-12-14 02:54:50 am

red chamber dream

also the bugs in skyrim are not minor. if you have a ps3 version the game can quite literally become unplayable after several hours no matter what the player does. a few days after this was discovered, bethesda released a patch that made it worse.

it's a hideously broken game that should never have shipped in its current condition. bethesda does this with every single game they release but no one seems to mind.

Poision Envy

2011-12-14 03:19:51 am

Club 27 Goals

huh, well then disregard what I said then I guess. I thought it was ign that pulled that, but looking around I can't seem to find that anywhere. For the record though, minecraft at most deserves a 7.5/10. If notch never let people preorder and "test" it before release, it would've crashed really hard if it launched with what it currently has for 1.0. Game breaking bugs everywhere, it has villages but the only NPC it has for them stand around and do literally nothing. The 3 or 4 different mobs are laughable, with the only one being "original" is the exploding creeper. The final boss is a giant dragon which is only difficult because it has an enormous amount of health and there's about 20 tower things that heal him. So what again is supposed to make this appealing? Digging into the ground to get better rocks to make better picks to get better rocks to make better armor and weapons? Too bad they're completely pointless. Terraria just beats minecraft in every single regard and yet hardly gets any press over it.

but anyway back to the point:

Quote from arkarian:

also the bugs in skyrim are not minor. if you have a ps3 version the game can quite literally become unplayable after several hours no matter what the player does. a few days after this was discovered, bethesda released a patch that made it worse.

it's a hideously broken game that should never have shipped in its current condition. bethesda does this with every single game they release but no one seems to mind.

that's specific to one console though, which is why sites like metacritic review each version of a game specific for each console/pc.

Also when I was talking about the points thing, I wasn't implying they start at 100, but when a reviewer says something like "This game was a 95/100, but we're going to take off 10 points due to various bugs" then it certainly means they take off points for bugs.

huh, well then disregard what I said then I guess. I thought it was ign that pulled that, but looking around I can't seem to find that anywhere. For the record though, minecraft at most deserves a 7.5/10. If notch never let people preorder and "test" it before release, it would've crashed really hard if it launched with what it currently has for 1.0. Game breaking bugs everywhere, it has villages but the only NPC it has for them stand around and do literally nothing. The 3 or 4 different mobs are laughable, with the only one being "original" is the exploding creeper. The final boss is a giant dragon which is only difficult because it has an enormous amount of health and there's about 20 tower things that heal him. So what again is supposed to make this appealing? Digging into the ground to get better rocks to make better picks to get better rocks to make better armor and weapons? Too bad they're completely pointless. Terraria just beats minecraft in every single regard and yet hardly gets any press over it.

but anyway back to the point:
[quote="arkarian"]also the bugs in skyrim are not minor. if you have a ps3 version the game can quite literally become unplayable after several hours no matter what the player does. a few days after this was discovered, bethesda released a patch that made it [i]worse[/i].

it's a hideously broken game that should never have shipped in its current condition. bethesda does this with every single game they release but no one seems to mind.[/quote]
that's specific to one console though, which is why sites like metacritic review each version of a game specific for each console/pc.

Also when I was talking about the points thing, I wasn't implying they start at 100, but when a reviewer says something like "This game was a 95/100, but we're going to take off 10 points due to various bugs" then it certainly means they take off points for bugs.

arkarian

Edit history:

arkarian: 2011-12-14 03:30:17 am

2011-12-14 03:27:40 am

red chamber dream

fair enough, though i've never seen any ign reviewer say that. i do agree about being able to give games different reviews for different systems but due to the way stuff in the industry works it's not always easy/feasible to do so. for instance, ign wasn't sent any review copies of the ps3 version of skyrim (cough cough i wonder why), so they only reviewed the 360 and pc versions. it sucks, but they need to get reviews out early for traffic numbers, so sometimes that's the way things go.

definitely agree about minecraft being a totally boring and lame game but not everyone thinks that. plenty of people pour hundreds of hours into that game. that's why i like reading reviews - you get one person's opinion on the game, and if you get to know what certain reviewers on certain sites like and don't like about games, you can start to be able to tell if you're going to agree with them or not.

reading a review from someone you've never read before is always tough because you don't know such things. expecting anyone to be "objective" (which is impossible - a review is a single person's opinion about a game) or automatically like the things you like isn't going to be very helpful to you.

for the record, ign gave terraria a 9.0, same as minecraft. the reviews were written by two different people though.

fair enough, though i've never seen any ign reviewer say that. i do agree about being able to give games different reviews for different systems but due to the way stuff in the industry works it's not always easy/feasible to do so. for instance, ign wasn't sent any review copies of the ps3 version of skyrim (cough cough i wonder why), so they only reviewed the 360 and pc versions. it sucks, but they need to get reviews out early for traffic numbers, so sometimes that's the way things go.

definitely agree about minecraft being a totally boring and lame game but not everyone thinks that. plenty of people pour hundreds of hours into that game. that's why i like reading reviews - you get one person's opinion on the game, and if you get to know what certain reviewers on certain sites like and don't like about games, you can start to be able to tell if you're going to agree with them or not.

reading a review from someone you've never read before is always tough because you don't know such things. expecting anyone to be "objective" (which is impossible - a review is a single person's opinion about a game) or automatically like the things you like isn't going to be very helpful to you.

for the record, [url=http://pc.ign.com/articles/117/1170612p1.html]ign gave terraria a 9.0[/url], same as minecraft. the reviews were written by two different people though.

Poision Envy

2011-12-14 03:41:05 am

Club 27 Goals

heh, I like how in the title they say that it's a 2D platformer "much more than a minecraft clone", yet still the same score. Terraria has tons more mobs, many different kinds of bosses, lots of different crafting, and theres just plain more stuff to do. Even if you narrow it down to each specific category, Terraria "objectively" beats minecraft in all the ways (except for making 3D sculptures, but that hardly counts as being part of the game anyway).

but yeah sorry for using ign, it was probably someshit like gamespot or some random video game site that claims to be a reviewing site.

arkarian

2011-12-14 03:42:44 am

red chamber dream

gamespot actually is shit. i can't stand any of their stuff.

Poision Envy

2011-12-14 03:46:19 am

Club 27 Goals

it's pretty neat how much money the brony team has donated to the humble bundle so far. It's great because this is the second time now, the first time being in the $3-4K range as well.

attachment:

Bundle.png

tomatobob

2011-12-14 04:10:03 am

One shall stand, one shall ball.

Quote from ryu:

huh, it's not a bad game. it just really pales in comparison to the n64 zeldas, and i believe the devs at retro might actually look back and think about what made zelda so great in the first place.

The entire game would be the Wind Waker Triforce hunt but on a forced route that takes you back to the opposite end of the map from where you are to solve an inane puzzle to allow you to go back to where you started for the next piece. Repeat about 30 times, then fight boss that exclusively uses shockwave attacks. The end.

arkarian

2011-12-14 04:12:54 am

red chamber dream

don't forget that you'd be able to skip nearly all of it, unless you're playing the nintendo selects version two years later

Poision Envy

Edit history:

Poision Envy: 2011-12-14 04:15:07 am

2011-12-14 04:13:47 am

Club 27 Goals

I'd really like to see the two different ign reviewers each switch and review the other game as well. There's some things on there that are just absurd.

Quote from ign:

Presentation:
7.0 - Terraria - "A lack of tutorials is frustrating at first. The menu interface also is a little cumbersome."
5.0 - Minecraft - "The menus of Minecraft work, but the lack of in-game information and hassle of setting up multiplayer games makes playing a bit tedious at times."

This is actually pretty fair on both fronts, considering Terraria now is better at explaining what to do with the Guide NPC.

Quote from ign:

Graphics:
7.5 - Terraria - "The 2D pixel art packs a lot of retro charm, but the SNES-era won't dazzle everyone."
8.5 - Minecraft - "It looks dated and silly the first time you see it, but the visuals of Minecraft are instantly memorable. I love the way it looks."

no, that's some serious bullshit right there. "instantly memorable" does NOT make something better. I could bake a shit pie, throw it in someones face, and the disgusting aroma and taste will be very memorable to the person, but they won't turn around and say "This is terrible, but I'll certainly remember it, 8.5/10!". Also the textures in minecraft are crap, and I'd give it a 7.5 as well just to be fair. Terraria's is fair enough I guess, although what they've done with the lighting system and everything is very impressive, but a 7.5 is fair for being a 2D sprite game.

I'm skipping the "sound" part because that's boring.

Quote from ign:

Gameplay:
9.0 - Terraria - "Between building, battling, and exploring, there's an absurd amount of stuff to do. Once you dig into it, you won't want to stop playing."
9.0 - Minecraft - "A great adventure game and a fantastic sand box where I can do just about anything I can dream up."

The Terraria one is spot on with the amount of things you can do. The minecraft one is full of shit though, 'anything I can dream up'? Yeah okay, how about flying around? How about building an arena and fighting a big boss? r how about doing anything other than digging and building? Even exploring in minecraft is completely boring because there's no sort of landmarks or anything that seperates one chunk of land from the other. There's biomes in minecraft but they don't _mean_ anything other than visual. In Terraria the bioms actually MEAN something in the game. Corruption spreads and spawns tough monsters, hallow similar but for end-game, dessert has mummies and things like that and different blocks, the jungle has all sorts of different enemies and tons of treasure, etc etc. Minecraft? It's all the damn same but different textures.

Quote from ign:

Lastly, Lasting Appeal:
9.0 - Terraria - "Solo and multiplayer modes are packed with a ton of depth and high replay value."
10 - Minecraft - "If you don’t like your world just create a new one and see what the generator comes up with. The only reason to stop playing is because your imagination has nothing left to give."

yeah okay, "See what the generator comes up with"? Holy shit, look, it randomly generated STONE right there instead of some kind of other fucking block. Or holy shit, it created an archway out of blocks. "The only reason to stop playing is because your imagination has nothing left to give" this is the single most stupid statement I have ever seen in a review. First off it back-hands the people that dislike it because it implies that their imagination isn't ~good enough~ to enjoy it, and then also acts as if the game runs off your imagination. my imagination involves ass and titties, I'd love to see that generated straight into minecraft.

I'd really like to see the two different ign reviewers each switch and review the other game as well. There's some things on there that are just absurd.

[quote="ign"]Presentation:
7.0 - Terraria - "A lack of tutorials is frustrating at first. The menu interface also is a little cumbersome."
5.0 - Minecraft - "The menus of Minecraft work, but the lack of in-game information and hassle of setting up multiplayer games makes playing a bit tedious at times."[/quote]

This is actually pretty fair on both fronts, considering Terraria now is better at explaining what to do with the Guide NPC.

[quote="ign"]Graphics:
7.5 - Terraria - "The 2D pixel art packs a lot of retro charm, but the SNES-era won't dazzle everyone."
8.5 - Minecraft - "It looks dated and silly the first time you see it, but the visuals of Minecraft are instantly memorable. I love the way it looks."[/quote]

no, that's some serious bullshit right there. "instantly memorable" does NOT make something better. I could bake a shit pie, throw it in someones face, and the disgusting aroma and taste will be very memorable to the person, but they won't turn around and say "This is terrible, but I'll certainly remember it, 8.5/10!". Also the textures in minecraft are crap, and I'd give it a 7.5 as well just to be fair. Terraria's is fair enough I guess, although what they've done with the lighting system and everything is very impressive, but a 7.5 is fair for being a 2D sprite game.

I'm skipping the "sound" part because that's boring.

[quote="ign"]Gameplay:
9.0 - Terraria - "Between building, battling, and exploring, there's an absurd amount of stuff to do. Once you dig into it, you won't want to stop playing."
9.0 - Minecraft - "A great adventure game and a fantastic sand box where I can do just about anything I can dream up."[/quote]

The Terraria one is spot on with the amount of things you can do. The minecraft one is full of shit though, '[i]anything I can dream up[/i]'? Yeah okay, how about flying around? How about building an arena and fighting a big boss? r how about doing anything other than digging and building? Even exploring in minecraft is completely boring because there's no sort of landmarks or anything that seperates one chunk of land from the other. There's biomes in minecraft but they don't _mean_ anything other than visual. In Terraria the bioms actually MEAN something in the game. Corruption spreads and spawns tough monsters, hallow similar but for end-game, dessert has mummies and things like that and different blocks, the jungle has all sorts of different enemies and tons of treasure, etc etc. Minecraft? It's all the damn same but different textures.

[quote="ign"]Lastly, Lasting Appeal:
9.0 - Terraria - "Solo and multiplayer modes are packed with a ton of depth and high replay value."
10 - Minecraft - "If you don’t like your world just create a new one and see what the generator comes up with. The only reason to stop playing is because your imagination has nothing left to give."[/quote]

yeah okay, "See what the generator comes up with"? Holy shit, look, it randomly generated STONE right there instead of some kind of other fucking block. Or holy shit, it created an archway out of blocks. "The only reason to stop playing is because your imagination has nothing left to give" this is the single most stupid statement I have ever seen in a review. First off it back-hands the people that dislike it because it implies that their imagination isn't ~good enough~ to enjoy it, and then also acts as if the game runs off your imagination. my imagination involves ass and titties, I'd love to see that generated straight into minecraft.

Poision Envy

2011-12-14 04:15:30 am

Club 27 Goals

anyway, enough ranting about that, I really need sleep

arkarian

2011-12-14 04:21:52 am

red chamber dream

yeah i really don't "get" minecraft either. need to sleep too but can't unfortunately ...

Quietus

2011-12-14 07:40:39 am

Super Secret Area - Dead Ahead!

Hehe, Poision hates Minecraft. Razz

Isn't it just like every other game, in that if you don't like it, you don't play it?

One could argue that the number of bugs that have been discovered would simply be indicative of its popularity. Less players would discover less bugs. It's also why tonnes of funny bug videos have surfaced for Skyrim - with so many players playing, these things are bound to be discovered. This is similar to the viruses on Windows as opposed to Linux debate.

And about the "imagination" thing: it makes sense to me. It doesn't sound like the reviewer said "If you have no imagination, don't play.", or "If you don't like this game, you have no imagination.", but more like "When you're playing this game, the only real reason to stop would be if you can't think of anything else to build."

I reckon you're just bashing it, 'cause you don't like it. keks

kesvalk

2011-12-14 07:53:40 am

Indie Lover

well, i love minecraft, but i quite agree with poision...

tomatobob

2011-12-14 07:54:12 am

One shall stand, one shall ball.

Well yeah, he would be bashing it because he doesn't like it. It just that he's made it pretty clear he doesn't like it cause it's a bad game.

Cause Minecraft is a pretty bad game, you see. Barely even a game really.