syntheticgerbil

But reading is haaaaard!

I guess I will have to get to the film, but it all sounds so painful!

That was rather scary. I enjoyed it though.

I think I was being too vague. I was imagining games that are streamlined and have very little filler but still hit rough or tedious spots. I don't really mean the addition of needless gameplay, but to go on the supposed 30-50% of those finishing episodic games even when there should be very little filler and some of the comments in the thread about those that quit after a game fails to impress them makes me think it's really more of when most players hit a rough spot in a game, they don't come back. Filler of course makes it worse, but you'd think the designers would make sure it's all parred down in an episodic game. On the designer side though, games in their nature will have repetition because of function and sometimes I think designers unknowingly tend to create more parts of a game without necessarily introducing anything new. They might not see it because they are no longer on the player side that is looking for something fresh and new but instead trying to explore all avenues of what their game can do, which can fail. On the other hand, I have no doubt there are designers completely hung up on value of full game length and will artificially stretch their game far beyond it's means. Er... I'm just saying that I think even if there were a game with the most streamlined, nonrepetitive, and smooth gameplay ever, I'm guessing still only 30-50% of players would finish just over personal taste or other matters in life.

So I figured I'd do my Warrior Within update here since the 20+ Idlethumbs threads going over the game are all locked now and this thread is already about bad Prince of Persia games. The major thing that sucks about this game is that it's actually quite good. A lot of the gameplay is solid here aside from the combat system. There's more platforming than Sands of Time, trickier traps, harder and more elaborate world puzzles, and neat acrobatic stuff. I'm very happy to keep playing that type of game, because I was very afraid that I'd mostly spend my time on the ground fighting bad guys. The only major thing marring the platforming and trekking is the amount of idiotic backtracking. I'd read complaints before about backtracking in this game and I assumed it was similar to the complaints I hear about practically any game that requires you to go back for something, namely there's usually one trip back. In this game, I think I did many paths three full times for the actual base game while if you're collecting all the crap like I'm obligated to do, some will have you going up to five times through the same place. I'm not even counting stuff where you do the same area in the past or present except with a change landscape and different platforms, that's fine to me. This game ended up pretty exhausting near the end while I much more enjoyed Sands of Time's completely linear path. The combat was really nothing special to me but not a burden like I was thinking it would be. At a few points it could be fun. I had a hard time at first until I really started getting used to the revised sand powers in this game, which I in fact find better than Sands of Time. The second weapon ordeal where it gives you a major edge in combat and you're almost fucked if you don't have one seems broken to me. Eventually I just learned to always keep a second weapon. There were a bunch of combos you could do in some ridiculously long ass menu but they had little impact on the game and really you just needed to memorize two or three button presses. I had no idea what combos you could do with what sword and what kind of timing was required to pull them off (Pressing the combination of buttons ahead of time seemed to work better for me than spacing them out). There was also a bunch of useless stuff where the secondary weapons had stats that seemed to make no impact on the game whatsoever. I guess I am glad the combat was the way it was because I thought the combat sequences would be as long as they were in Sands of Time but double that. Sands of Time's fighting was very slow and methodic, requiring you to remember what to do with each type of enemy. You didn't get the power to rush through the enemies until much later in the game. In Warrior Within, fights happened quick, enemies died much faster, and just didn't really pose any major threat as obstacles 80% of the time. I'm curious to see how Two Thrones balances this stuff out now. So I'm actually surprised I really liked playing this game for the most part. What makes it a bad game is just all of the cosmetic stuff in it's entirety. If there's anyone that says story, art direction, music, or any of the "fluff" does not make a game, Warrior Within is a prime example. All of that stuff just dragged it down to the depths. I don't know what else I can say that hasn't been already said a thousand fold on the internet. I guess I'll quickly break down my thoughts: Music was horrible obnoxious trash that I wished would turn off, story either made no sense or was just a load of deus ex machinas, dialogue was laughable throughout, the women were straight out of a porno (big boobs do not float up in the air perky like that), 80% of the environments were absolutely drab and uninteresting, and the prince was just an appalling unlikeable character who had very little motivation to be that way, especially coming off who he was in Sands of Time. But I guess Warrior Within did pretty well financially with the bro gamers. Here are parts from a choice review I found:

I feel the same way, sometimes a game can surprise you if you hold it out. In fact I'd venture to say there's almost no game that will not hit some rough, tedious, or repetitive spot. Even then, there's no way it will be the same for everyone. So the attitude that the game designers need to cater to exactly you or you won't finish the game is pretty nuts. On the game development side there's no way to possible know when your players will get to the breaking point of quitting sometimes, even with a bunch of analytics to back it up. Just like Metacritic statistics, they only go so far.

Well yeah, part of the problem is I have not played similar games (like even Dynasty Warriors which I hear is similar), but I still had a lot of fun with it. For the strategy battles, i remember thinking i never had enough fine control over my units, that there were some fairly significant failings of the interface. It's been a while since i played it, i'd have to go spend more time with it again to get any more specific, and i'm not going to do that. Yeah, that's my major gripe with the game. It all feels so cut and rushed. Various pieces of concept art and the map indicate a larger game was planned as well as the post mortem. It's a shame there wasn't much in the single player department and the game just rushed through itself.

I did notice that before when looking at screenshots a few months ago and my guess was that her model was tweaked many times when the screenshots were made. Otherwise I'm just really confused what's going on with her face.

I'm really just glad someone else appreciated the weird ass RTS stuff in Brutal Legend. I wrote some long ass post in the game's thread that I won't go over again, but basically I imagine it's hard for everyone to appreciate it without getting over the steep learning curve and even that, there's no one to play online with.

Comical Youtube eh? Sounds ridiculously traumatizing. Was it this past Easter weekend? Glad you're alright though!

I just totally reported you to the mods. Thank you!

Such bloat!

Awww yeah.

Someone put up episode links! I am not in a valid country.

Not dying, it appears.

I want more animated gifs of yourselves in this thread pronto!

Unfortunately it looks like companies aren't in the practice of releasing the HD versions of games on PCs. It's probably partly because you could run the original game at an HD resolution even though they updated all of the texture.

I think there's threads for it but they would be long closed. I loved the HD version, because besides giving me an excuse for playing it yet again, it looks much better now. Apparently the music got a higher quality overhaul as well. Only thing really messed up and broken in the HD version is the Yo Pearl game. The second analog stick has controls reversed. I should note about the credits in the HD version. They are ridiculously obnoxious because they now run at half speed. They were already longthe last time and now it's just downright painful. The reason is I guess they had to fit all the new Ubisoft administrative types collected since 2003 and then name everyone at Ubisoft Shanghai who remade the textures (Who of course should be credited, don't get me wrong). I'm actually kind of annoyed the original game credits don't go first, as the people who worked on the original game take forever to show up.

Still gotta do Cloudmen. Maybe tomorrow night! Lots of stuff to finish on a Sunday, ugh.

Well that's why it's now my favorite. That's seriously what I saw until you pointed that out.

Rodi, this is your day. Rodi, this is your day. Rodi. This. is. your. day.

Most expensive and time consuming onion rings ever.

As long as you kept the vomit off the table!

Art is not kitsch and kitsch can never be art!

Yeah the forum has been too tense lately, less game talk more arguing about social issues. It means I have less fun. I am selfish and only consider what I want and I want more fun.