Horticulture Tycoon

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Posts posted by Horticulture Tycoon

  1. Posted

    So a friend of mine recently discovered an Atari 2600 in her parents' attic, and I spent a good hour yesterday playing things like Combat and Chopper Command and Asteroids... Man, I forgot how mind-numbingly simple Atari games were. I mean, I still really love old arcade games like Pac-Man and Galaga, but those Atari games don't even hold up even on that basic level of pure, mindless fun. The games I tried, anyway. Very disappointing.

  2. Posted

    What a disappointing movie. It was like Pixar suddenly forget how to make things awesome.

    Although Pixar goes to great lengths to deflect all directorial credit to itself as a studio and away from its actual directors, the truth is that it's mostly Brad Bird and Andrew Stanton who know how to make things awesome. Pete Docter? No thanks.

  10. Posted

    So kudos, and welcome to the Eastern Standard Timezone :D

    Apparently Nick is traveling through time as well, because it's still Daylight Savings time. :mock:

    I haven't expressed my sadness on the boards yet because I was planning to call and leave another wizard voicemail, but I got too lazy so lemme just say ditto what everyone else said. I'll miss the cast, and remember it fondly.

  13. Posted

    Another dissapointing faction we're on a mission on our way to the end and it happens to be kind of the end, so meh to that.

    I... agree?

    If you're saying that one of the multiplayer factions is

    suspiciously absent from most of the game

    , then yes that is definitely disappointing. And odd.

    Also, I hope that goatse-esque

    cave leading to the Sea of Tears

    was unintentional. Double Fine seems too classy a joint for something like that.

  14. Posted

    Just finished, and I'm mildly disappointed. Disappointed as in I was possibly setting my expectations too high, not disappointed as in "this blows", but still... Although I enjoyed much of the game immensely, I think it's safe to say Brutal Legend is my least favorite of Tim Schafer's games so far. And I actually like heavy metal.

    Simply put, the RTS battles just don't work that well. Since it's nearly impossible to give individual orders to units, you have no choice but to command your army around in one big group. So every stage battle turns into my giant army fights your giant army, and the winner of that first skirmish takes control of all the resources and digs in. This is slightly mitigated by the fact that your player character can pretty much lay the entire enemy army to waste by himself, and also by the unit cap. But generally speaking, the stage battles all play out the same way almost every time, and unless people start coming up with some crazy out-of-the-box tactics in multiplayer, I can see it getting dull awfully quick. I was getting pretty tired of it by the end of single player, since I more or less knew if I was going to win or lose the battle within the first five minutes, and the rest of the battle was just a long slow march to its inevitable conclusion.

    That said, you don't finish a triple-A game in under 3 days unless you're enjoying it, especially if you're me. And saying that Brutal Legend is Schafer's weakest game is still to say it's superior to most titles out there. I do have some misgivings about the story, but I'll save those until more people finish.

  15. Posted

    I like it a lot, and then I hate it.

    Right now, I'm frustrated : I've spent the last 2 hours trying to

    beat Ophelia on a Battle stage

    , and the game never gives me a hint of why I'm losing. Plus, the shortcoming of the game are really showing : how come I don't know how long the debuff are lasting or when a spell is going to be available again ? How come even though I threw a Rock Block at the beginning of the game, the opponent still manages to throws bunch of troops at me in the first 30 seconds? How come the Merchbooths from the opponent takes age to crumble down (even in DoubleTeam) but mines falls like match buildings? How come it took me fuckin' ages to notice I could defend the stage by myself, and why isn't it bloody efficient ?

    If there are reasons - and I guess for 75% of these, there are - then the game fails to convey those. Writing a letter with advices day 1 after launch is cute , but it means something is wrong in terms of game design. Aren't there betas and test to notice that it's a big mess and then fix it?

    I've had similar frustrations fighting the

    Drowning Doom

    , but I think it's just a case of the game relying too much on the tour book to explain which enemy unit does what. Most RTS games (I know Tim says it's not an RTS, but it totally is) introduce units one at a time so you can learn what they do, and Brutal Legend does that for a while with the Ironheade units. But some of the enemy units they just throw at you all at once without explaining what they are, I've only gotten far enough to be fighting the

    Drowning Doom, and the first battle with them in the snow, there were suddenly five or six unfamiliar units attacking me all at once, plus I had one new friendly unit, and I had no clue what any of them were. I knew something was reducing my units' attack speed, but I didn't know what or why, so I had a really frustrating time. Of course, that matches Eddie's experience of being attacked by an unknown force for the first time, so maybe some of that is semi-intentional...

  18. Posted

    To be fair, it doesn't necessarily sound like these kids were talking about how badass the AvP movies are. Just that there were precursors that they weren't aware of.

    I mean hey, when I was young I didn't know that The Fly and The Thing were remakes, for example. Or even that there were actors who had portrayed James Bond prior to Timothy Dalton. Or that Rocky IV wasn't the best movie in the series.

    I'm sure if I was ever overheard talking about movies back then, there was some adult nearby quietly cursing my ignorance. All kids are stupid, and all of them eventually mature. The only uncertainty is to what degree.

  20. Posted

    I so want to like this, if only to send a message to LucasArts that I want more original games. But man, this game is boring. The trial version, anyway.

    The comparisons with Tetris and Lemmings are apt, except LucasArts took the worst elements of both. They took the frustrating Tetris randomness of waiting for a puzzle piece that may never come, and the frustrating Lemmings indirect control over your character(s). But with Lemmings it's about figuring out how to get your Lemmings to the goal, where here it's just about preventing her from falling into a hole over and over.

  24. Posted

    Ah, totally. For better or worse, Rian Johnson loves intricate dialogue. I tend to like it, but I know a lot of people who can't connect with it for reasons you mention or just because they don't like how much of it there is.

    It's possible I'm just used to that style of dialogue because of my love of old detective movies like The Big Sleep. If you think Brick's dialogue is unnecessarily complex (or its plot, for that matter), The Big Sleep is like Brick times twenty.