Questions about PSP and PS2

[Sno]

But this is me playing where I have to collect everything and get everything, so I imagine those that would play it like normal people won't get so annoyed. I'm really hoping LocoRoco 2 fixes all of the problems I had, because I'm about to just be done with this series otherwise.

I never played either of those games with any sort of completionist eye, i don't see what would compel it in that case, so i breezed through both of these charming puzzle platformers and had a great time. I don't think the sequel has checkpoints either, but to be honest, i never had to restart in the course of my regular playthrough.

[MrHoatzin]

SO! I started playing GTA: San Andreas again this weekend after unearthing an old PS2 and buying controllers, cables, memory cards and all the stuff that wasn't included in this particular excavation site but is needed for playing games... I own a few PS2 games, but I always played them on roommates' consoles.

This is as good a thread to post this as any. Especially considering all the San Andreas threads are behind the great forum lockdown of years ago. Besides, all of my posts in those threads are utter, utter shit. WTF. Why have you people been tolerating me for all these years? What the fuck is wrong with you?

This post contains an interesting sentiment, however. Let's revisit it.

I like that I hedged the "beautiful" with scare quotes, for one. Upon starting the game I was startled by how rough and dated everything looked. Particularly notable is the horror moiré of black power lines that alias jaggedly to the blurry TV pixels (we're still sporting a small-by-today's-standards sony trinitron tube tv, like some luddite hipsters). Then you have death masks with slit eyes, the boxy mitten hands with rudimentary thumbs, the fuzzy circular shadows under all characters and the ancient, largely artless mocap—

BUT, the "level" design is still awesome and the lighting design is amazingly effective and ends up carrying a lot of the weight of the mise en scène—even though the lighting engine is relatively crappy, with the exception of car glare which while not exactly realistic is pretty neat.

Basically, I am delighted by how charmingly retro the game looks. I wasn't expecting that. I should set up a tripod in front of the tv and take screenshots to illustrate what I am talking about.

Also, I think I have played all the way through the game twice already at this point, and I STILL cannot not make an ass of myself driving the bike in those first two missions. Bonk, you hit a traffic sign at half a mile an hour and in such a way that no amount of fidgeting will release you from your predicament, figure out which of these keys is for backing up—oops, sorry you just got hit in the head by a rival gang member and knocked off your bike.

[toblix]

I love back when I was amazed and astounded by huge virtual cities like in the GTA games. I simply couldn't believe anyone would consider or be able to create the sheer amount of assets needed, especially when most of it would never be seen by the player. It was like a paradigm shift; coming from linear games or open games with procedural or not-worth-mentioning content, I would find a street corner, look down one way and think "Jesus, I can just walk down that street and everything I pass will be hand made!" I would repeat this for each cardinal direction. In the distance I'd see a skyscraper, a stadium or some cranes at the docks, and for the first time I knew I could at any point make my way there, and at no point would the "skyscraper level" load – I was already looking at it, and the closer I got, the more detail was revealed, until I was right there. I was equally impressed with this for each of the 3D GTA games (the 2D ones were more obviously tile-based) including GTA IV. I would speak to everyone about how everything was there – even back alleys with garbage cans! – and grow frustrated at how I failed to produce any enthusiasm.

I had started to consider Rockstar semi-gods in this department. As far as I knew, they were the only ones who kept making huger and huger areas of highly detailed cities (also their games were great fun.) Then Mafia 2: The Disappointening happened, during the playing of which I realised that any developer can make huge levels and fill them with detail, and that it was just something they chose to do if they wanted to make an open world sandbox game. A little part of me died, and now when I play L.A. Noire, for example, I'm not at all impressed by the city. I just speed by thousands upon thousands of houses, stores, billboards and parks and take it all for granted. It makes me a little sad that I'm no longer blown away by what is obviously amazing work.

Short version: It was more fun to open Google Earth for the first time than it is now.

[miffy495]

I've never seen the PS2 version of the GTA games, actually. I played each of them on PC as they came out, and with higher resolution tweaks and all the goodness that the PC has to offer, I find that (though they're certainly dated as hell) they still all look quite clean and hold up all right. Particularly some of the wooded areas in San Andreas (I'm talking about the area in the South-West of the map specifically) I still find look beautiful now whenever I load it up on Steam. I'd definitely be interested in seeing some of your screenshots of the PS2 version just to see what the difference between them really is.

[Sno]

I love back when I was amazed and astounded by huge virtual cities like in the GTA games...

Having played TES games growing up, i was never especially impressed by feats of environmental scope. (Daggerfall sets the bar pretty high.)

I mean, but creating an arbitrarily massive environment would be the easy part, populating that massive environment with meaningful content is the hard part.

I've always felt Bethesda is pretty peerless when it comes to that.

[MrHoatzin]

Port of GTA III to the PC was pretty great. I prefer that game on the PC, the controls are more right to me and the auto-targeting interface looks awful in that game. When they ported Vice City, they forgot to care about all the awesome atmospheric shaders that made the game look like the 1980s music video—and that really pissed me off, so I preemptively didn't play San Andreas on the PC.

That awe you're talking about Toblix, GTA III does the most of that to me. I still get awed by the game when I fire it up. San Andreas does it less, because it is more overwhelming somehow there is just too much of it, and I find myself wondering, "Do I even want to go to this particular part of town?"—whereas Vice City of GTA III was a lot more explorable and concise, and therefore more knowable, almost befriendable.

So I guess I'll set up that tripod.

[miffy495]

That much is true. I actually find that my favourite open-world environment is still GTAIII's Liberty City. I still know that place like the back of my hand, and after all these years if I fire it up again I feel like I'm back in a neighbourhood that I used to live in or something. The cities (hell, sometimes continents) in more modern open-world games are almost too much for me. I'm never in any part of them long enough to get accustomed to it, and so never make a connection to anything. The exception here is in Red Dead Redemption, where when Marston came home I felt like I was coming home. This wasn't due to anything in the game though, so much as the fact that I actually live where that was set (foothills of the Rockies) and it was the best representation of it I've seen in a game. If you don't live around here, you probably didn't feel that.