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Jake

Idle Thumbs 100: King Chromin' For A Day

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Tomb Raider does not do last seen position and it really ruins the combat scenarios for me. (The stealthy bits before the combat are good, but once the enemies spot you its a duck-behind-cover-headshoot all the way.

 

Friend just noticed the similarity btw Bioshock and this PBF comic:

 

PBF209-Now_Showing.jpg

 

i lol'd

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Yeah it did, the game would leave a white silhouette of your last seen position. in fact I'm pretty sure the new tomb raider did this, not the silhouette thing, just having enemies concentrating on your last seen position

 

I think that is awesome and I love how much more tactical and realistic it makes a game feel. However, I still feel like even tactical shooters tend to allow you to get shot repeatedly without much consequence since your health will either regenerate or you can find some magical pills. I would just like to see a game that greatly increases the lethality of bullets but maybe tones back how accurate enemies are at making those bullets go into your head. I mean, if I am some super badass combat dude I would expect the enemies to miss more shots than me instead of hitting me every time they have a line of sight when it takes me longer to line up and take a shot that actually hits them. I think if the AI and abilities of the player were balanced correctly you could have a playable FPS with realistic bullet lethality and no health packs or regenerating health.

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I think that is awesome and I love how much more tactical and realistic it makes a game feel. However, I still feel like even tactical shooters tend to allow you to get shot repeatedly without much consequence since your health will either regenerate or you can find some magical pills. I would just like to see a game that greatly increases the lethality of bullets but maybe tones back how accurate enemies are at making those bullets go into your head. I mean, if I am some super badass combat dude I would expect the enemies to miss more shots than me instead of hitting me every time they have a line of sight when it takes me longer to line up and take a shot that actually hits them. I think if the AI and abilities of the player were balanced correctly you could have a playable FPS with realistic bullet lethality and no health packs or regenerating health.

 

Sounds you're describing most light gun arcade games.  The vast majority of the enemies will shoot all around you without being a threat, except for that one guy who shoots the magic bullet that does damage.  And since you only have 3 lives per credit, getting hit is a big deal, with little or no chance of getting lives back (without spending money anyway).

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Sounds you're describing most light gun arcade games.  The vast majority of the enemies will shoot all around you without being a threat, except for that one guy who shoots the magic bullet that does damage.  And since you only have 3 lives per credit, getting hit is a big deal, with little or no chance of getting lives back (without spending money anyway).

 

Yeah but those games also have none of the elements I mentioned earlier. I guess I'm sort of describing a mix of MGS, Splinter Cell, and light gun arcade games but with enemies that don't have lightning fast reaction times where they spot you one instant and the next you've been shot.

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Sounds you're describing most light gun arcade games. The vast majority of the enemies will shoot all around you without being a threat, except for that one guy who shoots the magic bullet that does damage. And since you only have 3 lives per credit, getting hit is a big deal, with little or no chance of getting lives back (without spending money anyway).

The RED guy!

Also watch out for throwing knifes as if light gun games are to be believed they're always 100% accurate (and call of duty YouTube videos)

Zeusthecat the game you want is rainbow six Vegas, maybe, it has more realistic accuracy for the player, if you try and move and shoot at the same time you can forget about hitting anything. Ooo I hope the new one is a next gen launch title

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Holy crap, so much awesome discussion in this episode. Sean, it WAS a good one.

 

The discussion on the gifts was unreal. Imagine receiving the gifts. At what point does that person's mindset turn from appreciation and apprehension to expectation? On day 19 where you wander by and apologize, do they go "WHAT THE FUCK, NO GIFT TODAY? God, the nerve." Do they feel relief? Would there be a pattern to the gifts?

 

It goes so deep.

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I think that is awesome and I love how much more tactical and realistic it makes a game feel. However, I still feel like even tactical shooters tend to allow you to get shot repeatedly without much consequence since your health will either regenerate or you can find some magical pills. I would just like to see a game that greatly increases the lethality of bullets but maybe tones back how accurate enemies are at making those bullets go into your head. I mean, if I am some super badass combat dude I would expect the enemies to miss more shots than me instead of hitting me every time they have a line of sight when it takes me longer to line up and take a shot that actually hits them. I think if the AI and abilities of the player were balanced correctly you could have a playable FPS with realistic bullet lethality and no health packs or regenerating health.

 

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

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Modern games do a really poor job at simulating the effect that the hyper adrenal state has on the body, specifically on fine motor functions. Shooting guns under any manner of stress is ridiculously difficult (hand guns especially). Crazy things start to happen to your perception of reality in this kind of state. I spent some time doing some "full contact stick fighting" in my early 20's and in the worst throws of adrenal rush I would lose all perception of color. I guess it's pretty common, the brain just stops processing some of that sense data. In my mind it's something "sacrificed for reaction speed" but that might not be the reality of it. I'm also stupid enough to enter into a situation where someone is swinging a stick at me trying to harm me so I don't know if I would really listen to my opinion of why the brain is doing what it is....

 

I've spent a lot of time in my adult life thinking about ways that video games could communicate "combat stress" to their players. Not a lot of games even make an attempt. MGS4 is maybe the last game that I can think of that tried to implement it as a mechanic. Even as an aesthetic element it's rarely expressed. The reality of most game combat is that it's giving you not only the camera's perspective of the action but also the camera's observer experience. I can't think of many games that make an effort to actually communicate the experience of the combatant inside of the situation, which is intense, disorienting, rhythmic, and largely frustrating. 

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Zeusthecat the game you want is rainbow six Vegas, maybe, it has more realistic accuracy for the player, if you try and move and shoot at the same time you can forget about hitting anything. Ooo I hope the new one is a next gen launch title

 

Loved RSV and it also had a lot of unique mechanics but it did do the whole regenerating health thing which is one of the bugaboos I mentioned.

 

I realize I'm being incredibly picky, specific, and unrealistic but when you put all of the elements together (realistic bullet lethality, no concept of player 'health', and a more real life experience of how a gun battle might take place between a highly trained person and a bunch of less experienced henchmen) I'm not sure that any game makes a true attempt to achieve this. I guess I'm thinking of the dynamic similar to how a James Bond movie works. He is a badass that is in a ton of gunfights throughout the whole movie and kills countless people and maybe gets shot once in the arm through the whole movie. If that dynamic could be represented in a game where the player to AI skill ratio is similar to the James Bond to henchmen skill ratio that would be an entirely unique FPS experience compared to what I've had exposure to.

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That's a great way to look at how shields change gameplay. I hate to reiterate but the end of the game was not fun (Infinite). Now, my feelings were also effected by the fact that I didn't particularly like the ending of the game in the story sense as well. I thought it was not particularly strong. But near the end on hard they do just start throwing out more enemies, bigger encounters, and more annoying things. It's unpleasant.

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Zeus, Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway has the health system you're describing. Taking fire when not in cover causes the screen to desaturate and reduces weapon accuracy. After a length of time determined by the difficulty setting, enemy weapon type and range one lethal bullet will hit you. It is a very effective system which completely negates the need of a contrived health system and lends a sense of realism. It is just strict enough for the enemies to feel very threatening without leading to constant reloading (a problem RSV has on harder difficulties, especially when encountering snipers).

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Thanks Colourful Stuff, that sounds like one that hits most of the notes I'm talking about. I'll have to check it out.

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Thanks Colourful Stuff, that sounds like one that hits most of the notes I'm talking about. I'll have to check it out.

It's a very slick tactical squad based game unfortunately hampered by an incomprehensible story and at times restrictive level design. Gearbox needs to make another one!

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I love everything about Idle Thumbs, and each podcaster's opinion is worth 10,000 of my own, but I can't shake the feeling that commenting on BS:I after 2 or 3 hours is like commenting on a movie you're currently 20 minutes into watching.  It seems a little unfair.  I'll be curious to see how their views change over time.

 

If I was to use my own experience with this game as an example, it would go like this:

 

1 hour in - What an incredibly gorgeous world they've constructed.  I can't wait to see more of it.

7 hours in - This is a good, yet totally overrated game.  Why so many 10/10 reviews?

14 hours in (i.e. finished the game) - This is one of the most memorable gaming experiences I've ever had. 

 

I don't want to give anything away, but the fact that so much of the story is still being debated and interpreted feels like a landmark moment in video games.  It's the exact opposite of the patronizing drivel we're usually fed.  Think about how many other developers (or publishers) would have been afraid to tackle these themes and/or focus-tested the game into oblivion. 

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"Unfair" is a weird word given that we were up front with how far into the game we were. I think it's reasonable for people to have expressible opinions 2-5 hours into a piece of work. That's a lot of life to spend on something. We were also pretty clear that we'll be talking about it more after we finish. I am not finding BioShock Infinite patronizing, but I'm also having trouble finding meaning in it. I'm curious as to whether that changes by the end so I'm going to play the hell out of it in the next couple nights.

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I would consider myself a sold cynic, but sometime around the last IT discussion of the RIFT it just clicked with my mind, and the idea of looking around Far Cry 3, or really a higher fidelity Fallout New Vegas seems so enticing. I like that Sean expressed fear that it could be the fabled Infinite Jest. 

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I don't want to give anything away, but the fact that so much of the story is still being debated and interpreted feels like a landmark moment in video games.

Even relative to this game's own predecessor? BioShock was definitely a game whose story and themes were discussed for quite a while following its release; by contrast it's only been a week since Infinite came out.

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"Unfair" is a weird word given that we were up front with how far into the game we were. I think it's reasonable for people to have expressible opinions 2-5 hours into a piece of work. That's a lot of life to spend on something. We were also pretty clear that we'll be talking about it more after we finish. I am not finding BioShock Infinite patronizing, but I'm also having trouble finding meaning in it. I'm curious as to whether that changes by the end so I'm going to play the hell out of it in the next couple nights.

 

In the interests of full disclosure, a) I added the "unfair" comment at the last moment, and I had doubts about its inclusion immediately, and 2) I'm only half-way through the podcast (at the 55-minute mark, I'm smack in the middle of your Infinite discussion, and probably just before you mention that there will be more Bioshock talk once you finish it). :)

 

I just wanted to draw attention to the fact that a brief window is more than enough for most of today's games, but it's another reason why I think Bioshock:Infinite is a unique moment for the medium.  Like a good book, I wanted to run to a forum and discuss it the moment it was over. Also like a good book, I didn't fully appreciate it until I finished it and gained some perspective.

 

Speaking of perspective, I need some because I'm fawning over Infinite more than it probably warrants. 

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Even relative to this game's own predecessor? BioShock was definitely a game whose story and themes were discussed for quite a while following its release; by contrast it's only been a week since Infinite came out.

 

Sadly, I don't own a 360 and I had a terrible PC in 2007, so I only experienced Bioshock 1 a couple of years ago, and I missed the discussion that occurred during its initial release. 

 

When I finally played it, I found elements of the theme incredible, but I found the plot and the way it was executed to be too similar to System Shock 2.  I also think that Bioshock:Infinite's story is objectively more ambitious - it involves multiple lofty themes, and it also executes the main story in an incredibly satisfying way.  I can't speak to whether or not people will still be discussing this game a year from now, but several reviews explicitly mentioned that as a possibility.

 

Infinite is actually the first game I've preordered in a looooong time, and it really makes a great argument against waiting for a steam sale for everything.  Being part of the conversation (as opposed to hunting down forum topics and threads several months later) is more valuable and interesting than I ever realized. 

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I don't feel like this game is going to have the same kind of thematic sticking power the first one had. I'm not sure how to really have that discussion without spoilers. I really like the game but I don't necessarily think it's as relevant to video games as a whole as the first one was. This feels like much more of a safer traditional shooter. A really super well presented one with a fun story but still [shrug]

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Infinite is actually the first game I've preordered in a looooong time, and it really makes a great argument against waiting for a steam sale for everything.  Being part of the conversation (as opposed to hunting down forum topics and threads several months later) is more valuable and interesting than I ever realized. 

 

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

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That's a sort of interesting way of looking at things. I don't generally view DLC as being part of the "boxed product". Maybe not a good method of thinking considering how games are being delivered and monetized now. 

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Ah, shit. I was geared up for the 100th episode, heard Infinite talk start so skipped ahead a bit. Bit more. Bit more. Oh.

 

The podcast will be dangerous until I play it.

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