thestalkinghead

maybe they should just separate the tutorial from the single player and trust that if a player wants to learn something specific they will use them and if they want to learn by playing that is what they will do, i kind of feel like with strategy games that realising you have totally fucked up and restarting the level can teach you so much more than following the instructions of a tutorial for no apparent reason, maybe the first level should be easy and have reasonably specific and clear objectives but once you have done that learning by doing is better just following specific orders, but of course that is just the way i like to do things and that may not be for everyne

i think the reason RTS single players campaigns are so bad is because the game is designed around the multiplayer, meaning they prioritise an emphasis on build orders and clicks per second, so the single player is generally just a tutorial for the multiplayer, i don't like multiplayer in general and i like tower defence games but I'm not a casual gamer, computer games are my passion and my main form of entertainment

i really like building simulations, i think prison architect is great, i like to think of the AI inefficiencies as human error so you have to build in redundancy into your design, and achievements MEH!! when i first heard people were obsessed with console achievements i thought the points you got were money off games but it turns out that they are just arbitrary markers than mean nothing in game or out of game, i don't get why people love them so much and even say you have only completed the game if you have all the achievments. and shut up the matrix 2 is a masterpiece

audio books are better than books in games but they both still suck, wouldn't a better structured story and characters in game be a more natural way of delivering information. representation in games is generally similar to the representation in adverts, they are more aspirational than representative, even a game like the sims which seems completely customisable everyone usually ends up looking quite beautiful but generic like a ken/barbie doll, and no matter how hard i try i make the action hero fantasy version of myself in mass effect, so generally even as a straight white male i am rarely represented personally (ben TWDG represents me), except in a way that represent my aspirations eg. strong, brave, good, hero and i am guessing that these things are generally universal. when it comes to relationships being represented in games though, i do think games like mass effect are trying hard to represent something quite complex, like how they give you the choice of your love interest instead of just deciding that this is the female you shall love, choosing Tali seemed personal to me where as a railroaded cut scene with "what's her name" and "great ass" would have been boring, and i would imagine it feels a lot more personal choosing your own sexual preference over generic couple 1 so even though most games don't actually represent me visually i think personal and moral choices makes a game feel like it represents me way more than the look, sex or sexual preference of the character does, but saying that i think if a game did railroad me into a same sex relationship i would be more on edge (critically speaking) and have all these side issues running through my head like "is this just pandering?" "would the GLBT community like this more, or less than me?" and " i like this couple but are they just a straight couple in a gay couples body" (while knowing it was both irrational and insane and dismissing these ideas) whereas with a different sex couple i would either be "yawn" or "yay". i feel like i have a pretty open mind about who people love but i know it would have to be handled very well for everybody playing to have to have a same sex relationship in a game

i would say i have played enough games, that an hour is enough to know if the game is good, not the story (in complete form) but the game mechanics and feel of the game, but i think reviewers should just say they didn't like it enough to complete it or they haven't but will complete it if this is the case

yeah, i think there are a lot of things that can be predicted by trends, but any time a game has any kind of freedom of choice (including basic things like where you are looking) you can't rely on a trend to predict what people are going to do, you either have to accommodate for everything or force the player to do something, which i guess is why the coin toss isn't the players choice

i always choose heads in a coin toss because that is my name, it is impossible for developers to know why people make the decisions they make no matter how much testing and data analysis they do

i was really put of preordering it because of the DLC scheme they had going, i don't really like DLC anyway let alone buying it before it has been made, i will just have to wait for a sale with all the DLC included, if they had said there will never be any DLC i may already own it, but i just don't like the idea of not getting the entire finished product it's like buying half a season of a TV show i just couldn't stand that i need it all, and plus since i bought skyrim at full price of £45 and was wholly disappointed i just haven't felt the need to buy games new at full price

maybe this would take some crazy processing power but what if they designed AI that would have to aim by sight just like us and have to track in the same way a human would and take time to get a good shot or maybe spray and pray, it would be sort of like the technology they use for some security cameras to track people instead of just having an accuracy percentage or whatever they use now, also maybe simulated AI fear would be good so covering fire and deadly accuracy would make them fear a gunfight and hide and shoot at you less, along with the greater lethality of weapons could make for some tense situations

yeah it had the last know position thing which made it easy to trick and flank people, but the whole game was undermined by the "Mark and Execute" function, it took away any stealth or tactics when all you had to do was stealth kill a few stragglers then mark targets (through walls) then run into the middle of the room full of the enemies the press execute and he would john woo headshot everybody in the room, the game kind of felt like i was playing 24 the game or something, which is kinda cool but not really what i was expecting from a splinter cell game, and i completed it in like 6 hours, it is the only game i have just returned to the shop (i'm generally a PC gamer and we don't trade in our games) because i was annoyed at it and i felt i had wasted my money, double agent is way is better if you actually want a stealth game

i think recharging shields and recharging health have a place in shooters but not all of them, they work if they solve problems of a game eg. Call of duty 2- problem- infinite enemies spawn in buildings until you push forwards into the building and clear it out-solution= recharging health so you can actually push forwards and defeat the infinite enemies without needing infinite health packs spawning everywhere or just running out of health packs and putting the player in an impossible position (and shut up COD 1 & 2 were good) but with it being a feature in every shooter now i just find myself ignoring being shot, like borderlands 2 i just didn't care at all about being shot because you had shields+recharging health+killing someone after you are downed revives you, so i just went berserk with dual shotguns and just ate up bullets while running straight at the enemy, and that worked most of the time it, and the times it didn't were as Jon Blow said when they spammed enemies at me or had really powerful attacks. i do think heath packs are a bit of a problem on their own but i don't know what would be a better solution than recharging health... maybe checkpoints could give you back your health, i dunno if that would be better

wht is horror gme?

i would say system shock 2 was sci-fi horror in the same way that the film event horizon is sci-fi horror, but i never even thought that bioshock tried to be horror at all, maybe the enemies were a bit creepy and you could do evil things but it just seemed more of a dystopian alternate reality rather than horror, i would say it was more an action sci-fi, it just didn't have enough horror for me to categorize it as horror. but yeah good question "what is a horror game" maybe the power of the player goes a lot towards the horror element, i think the power of the player was much greater in bioshock compared to system shock 2, even though you could choose to have telekinetic powers and stuff like that in system shock 2 your overall power was still pretty low, like i hoped that every new area i went into in system shock 2 was empty because you could be killed easy, but i never hoped for no enemies in bioshock i wanted more to kill

i never thought of bioshock as a horror game, system shock 2 was and that is why i never saw any similarities between them and i saw them saying it was the spiritual successor as just a marketing ploy. if someone gave me a gift every day i think i would like them more, but i would have an internal struggle as to whether i liked them because they gave me stuff or i just like them independently of that and then i would feel guilty about wondering about that. to me oculus rift wouldn't really work for me, i am generally physically lazy and i mostly relax while playing games, but i don't feel like i could ever relax while playing a game with the oculus rift, it would probably work better for films for me but maybe not in it's current form

i feel like if i ever played DOTA2 with any of you guys i would either just never want to play with you again or i would tell you to "fuck off and don't tell me what to do" and you wouldn't want to play with me again, i hate people who take games too seriously and feel like they have the right to tell me how to enjoy myself, i am fine with people suggesting tactics or just asking people to follow them or whatever but angrily commanding people to "JUST DO AS I SAY!!" is just rude and will either be ignored or actively defied as much as possible

about star wars, i am the same, i like the games (and the mythology) way more than the films (opposite for star trek)

yeah, journey could be a great game that i would want to tell everybody to play, but i will never know because of exclusivity bullshit

the cost/benefit would be the important factor for a subscription based game service yeah i have a UK account and it redirected me to the UK onlive, but the value of those 200+ games would be gone in a few months (i either own them or don't rate them very highly) it would really need a large selection of the best games for it to be worth a subscription else it would feel like i was subscribed to like 2 games and wouldn't be worth it, it would need to feel like i could just play anything for me to feel like i was getting value for money, or if episodic games take off and more get made it would need more than one game for it to be worth subscribing to, like paying for a TV channel.

onlive to me is really more a way to play games that the system requirements are to much for the thing you are playing them on, and plus you have to pay for the games separately, imagine if there were two versions of steam 1) the free one everyone uses now 2) the subscription based steam that allows you to play every game in their store for a monthly fee 2) would be what i think would be great, it would be complicated to set up for Valve (paying the publishers of the games) but i think it would work, and you could still have DLC/micro-transactions sold separately but maybe subscribers would get reward points they could spend for being long time subscribers

speaking of netflix, do people think there will ever be a netflix for games? as in a service you pay for that gives you access a large amount of games but instead of paying for the games separately you subscribe to "NetGames" and are given access to all the games they have, i think this would be a good model for episodic games, possibly this kind of thing would need advertisement to keep it as affordable as netflix but i would probably be interested in this service because i set myself a budget and i like to try new games and this would be a great way to be able to try put a lot of games.

yeah that the necromancer was only a preorder bonus/seperate DLC is the kind of rip off bullshit i hate

that is actually the kind of DLC I don't mind, i don't care if other people want to ruin a large part of the gaming experience by unlocking everything with real money that is their choice, but if i buy a game i want the potential to have everything because that is what i paid for, if the guns were only unlockable by paying more after you had bought the game that would be annoying

yeah, the GTA DLC's were more like sequels but with the same engine , totally acceptable, the DLC character in Mass effect 2 was basically the opposite of the prothean, he seemed very out of place on the ship and had zero effect on the story, was just it's own enclosed side mission and he was free, so not really an issue

i dont know maybe the prothean DLC comes free with the game now but it didn't when it came out, it was either with a pre order package or you had to buy it separately, and i think it is the same for the catwoman DLC

DLC that was clearly just taken out of the game = Mass Effect 3 prothean that is what annoys me, also DLC that effects the story annoys me because is makes the game you have incomplete, imagine if you bought a book and loved it, then later the author added another chapter in the middle of the story and then said there would be more to come, that would put you in a position of never knowing if you have ever got the full story and also not allow you to fill in gaps yourself because you may get that story later and it may contradict your imagination, maybe that makes it easier to understand why DLC annoys me also DLC always punishes people that buy the game when it comes out (and funds that DLC) because they have to buy DLC separately with no package deals, i would be much happier about DLC if you got if free with the purchase of the game (not a separate and expensive season pass) but the story effecting DLC would still be a problem. but basically i would prefer a complete game with a beginning, middle and an end then just leave the game alone and make a new game, not keep adding bits to the game that turns your complete game into an incomplete game unless you want to pay more for it to be complete.