tegan

I Had a Random Thought (About Video Games)

Recommended Posts

It's about time, an official Farming Simulator peripheral is in the works. Perhaps a truck driving wheel for Euro Truck Simulator is right down the road.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It's about time, an official Farming Simulator peripheral is in the works. Perhaps a truck driving wheel for Euro Truck Simulator is right down the road.

 

I find the Logitech G27 to be more than adequate for my Euro Truck Simulator needs. (pushes glasses up bridge of nose)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Pssh, that's like a tiny baby wheel, for baby games. A trucking wheel needs to be like 3 feet across.

Actually, they're only slightly larger than normal steering wheels, by a few inches. But I learned to drive a grain truck when I was like 12, so I always have this mental image of them being comically giant because that's how they seemed to me at that age.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The G27 is a very fine wheel for the price they ask. I prefer it way above the Fanatec products which, while advanced and very cool, are expensive and quite liable to break.

Thrustmaster products are also quite good and is in the low-mid price range of the field. Not a bigfan of their biggest and baddest wheel (T500RS) though, as its FFB feels a bit off and the wheel base gets very noisy when the fans kick in.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Do y'all ever go back and play completed levels when they are selectable from a menu? It seems like the Angry Birds 3-star system encourages levels to be full consumed and then forgotten. How would you imagine a character-driven narrative game that had selectable menus and designations of completion while still encouraging players to go back and play through their favorite short-stories again? Like with the Tell Tale episodic games, I never say to myself "Oh I'm going to go back and play chapter two again!"

Is there a way to organize or present or write short, narrative-centric vignettes that encourage revists?

Btw: I will likely be stealing the ideas that y'all provide and using them as my own.

Edit: I think this might be the motivation behind unlockable abilities and unlockable characters/classes.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'd love to be able to re-visit some parts of 80 Days without having to commit to a whole run.  There's got to be potential to take that experience and break it up into more discrete chunks.

 

Has anyone ever made a good "Canonball Run" game?  Like, not just the cross country car racing, but the zany interactions and unexpected experiences that happen as well. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Has anyone ever made a good "Canonball Run" game? Like, not just the cross country car racing, but the zany interactions and unexpected experiences that happen as well.

How would this differ from 80 Days? Do you mean mechanically this, or specifically a The CannonBall Run themed game?

also:

If the 80 Days vignettes were selectable, how would you want to select them? By clicking on a city? Maybe a mixture where you have to use resources to get to certain stories (I think this may be exactly the solution I'm looking for)? Or having short-story titles that remind you of the main crux that you can click on?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I didn't have a super specific thought about that, it just occurred to me.  Mechanically it could be similar to 80 Days, but different in that you wouldn't be racing a fixed amount of time, but against other racers who you could assist or hurt (in fact, there could be some interesting ending options if you chose to help other people win instead of going for victory yourself). 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think the way 80 Days is written as a diary then maybe you could have special vignettes of Passepartout reminiscing on them and contemplating how they could have gone differently. (from what I've seen they're often independent of external variables like your money, inventory and time anyway). Though I think that might be a bit funky with the writing style, and also would mean having to designate what events count as being vignette and what don't.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I didn't have a super specific thought about that, it just occurred to me.  Mechanically it could be similar to 80 Days, but different in that you wouldn't be racing a fixed amount of time, but against other racers who you could assist or hurt (in fact, there could be some interesting ending options if you chose to help other people win instead of going for victory yourself). 

 

This was actually sort of how I imagined 80 days actually being when I first started it up and saw other dots moving around on the globe. It's a neat idea, that could work well. I also imagine something like an "Amazing Race" variant could work.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm starting to find myself prefer games that rely on strong mechanics and game play and ignore story completely, or have a subtle narrative, than my traditional favourite games that focus almost entirely on narrative.

I don't know why, but Mario, Bayonetta, Metroid and Souls are becoming my favourite games, the kinda stuff I would have hated as a kid. While things I loved as a teenager such as world war two games and RPGs or would have loved, like dragon age inquisition or bioshock infinite are feeling stale. Like they're written by people who don't really know how to write.

I was able to overlook Destiny's lack of narrative because frankly, who cares? Mechanics are king in video games.

But then there are narrative gems that occasionally come out and make me buy other narrative games again only to be disappointed with their lack of imagination or creativity.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Shadow Warrior is great. So much better than the original, "classic" title (I enjoyed it as a kid, but come ON).

 

All of the weapons feel brilliant so far, except for the demon heart because I always forget to switch to it during a hectic fight. Wish there was a quick-use for that one. The katana is nuts, carving demons up is brilliant fun. The short range dash is the icing on the cake, only I wish I could use it in the air! If I could use it in the air this would probably be one of my favourite FPS games.

 

As it is, it's merely very good.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I ended up just remapping the demon heart and the demon head to different keys so they would be more accessible during fights. 8 and 9 are terrible default mappings for exnpendable items you need to grab and use in the middle of a fight.

 

That dash is crazy, it absolutely makes that game, and - i wonder if it's intentional - it feels like a very japanese piece of design. It makes that game just move so fast though, leaping into the middle of a group, unleashing a large sword strike, and then getting out just as quickly. I was playing Shadow Warrior and another game called ZIggurat kind of simultaneously. Ziggurat is a throw back shooter, inspired by Raven's old Heretic and Hexen games, and it therefore is a very, very fast moving game. After finishing Shadow Warrior and going back to Ziggurat, i was bowled over by how slow Ziggurat felt in comparison to Shadow Warrior, which is just such a frantic, fast moving game.

 

I went into Shadow Warrior feeling like that was a 3D Realms IP that should probably just be left alone, but i ended up enjoying the game a whole lot.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I just discovered that in the angel entry for Valiance in Bayonetta 2 it confirms that Bayonetta and The Wonderful 101 share a universe. This made me very happy.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I was just playing Escape Goat 2 (pretty good!) on my PS4 and right as a finished a stage the game crashed. When I restarted it my save data was completely gone. Probably had the map 75% filled in or so. Just wanted to complain about that somewhere.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Was this in a single sitting? If not you might be able to pull down a cloud save, unless it's been overwritten: Settings > Application Saved Data Management > Save Data In Online Storage.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I thought I had seen an Endless Legend thread, but now it seems that I was making that up.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Was this in a single sitting? If not you might be able to pull down a cloud save, unless it's been overwritten: Settings > Application Saved Data Management > Save Data In Online Storage.

 

I think saves only get uploaded in rest mode and for whatever reason I've been completely powering off my system lately so the saves weren't uploaded. Lesson learned on that one I guess.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm starting to find myself prefer games that rely on strong mechanics and game play and ignore story completely, or have a subtle narrative, than my traditional favourite games that focus almost entirely on narrative.

I don't know why, but Mario, Bayonetta, Metroid and Souls are becoming my favourite games, the kinda stuff I would have hated as a kid. While things I loved as a teenager such as world war two games and RPGs or would have loved, like dragon age inquisition or bioshock infinite are feeling stale. Like they're written by people who don't really know how to write.

I was able to overlook Destiny's lack of narrative because frankly, who cares? Mechanics are king in video games.

But then there are narrative gems that occasionally come out and make me buy other narrative games again only to be disappointed with their lack of imagination or creativity.

 

Different games are good for different reasons!

 

My arc is similar to yours. I would have inhaled Mass Effect when i was 20, but it looks like a gross boring slog to me at 32. Mechanics would appear to be king for me also, but then out of nowhere i will spend hours daydreaming while playing 80 days. And then I picked up wolfenstein. Am i wrong to compare it to painkiller, the last FPS i played with such recklessness joy at how fun and ridiculous it is?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

As someone who used to like GTA but doesn't anymore I found this video to be on point

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I am trying to remember who or where but, if memory didn´t fail me, did someone asked for a Far Cry with dinossaurs? because you might get one - http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-01-05-ubisoft-polls-public-on-future-far-cry-settings

 

On another note - as old post here I did might suggest I tried to go back a bit to Granado Espada, but oh god, this game is starting to test my patience again - economy appear to be failing apart, finding new gear or gain levels require you to go in raids which you can´t go because you lack both gear and levels loop.Sad thing is for all its issues, it kind unique (there is nothing like it) game that suffer from bad management. They did a Christmas event which was almost a joke, I mean on description mobs would drop a seed which you would use create a Christmas Tree, which can wield a gift with good rewards. Problem is (which they didn´t tell), that seed drop rate was more low that most very rare stuff in the game, even if you let your character in the ingame afk hunting mode (which you might need to spend pet food, for pickup stuff) a whole night you still might not finding anything.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

As someone who used to like GTA but doesn't anymore I found this video to be on point

 

I kind of felt the same way about GTAV, i couldn't get through it.

It's a game that is so pervasively angry and cynical, but it has nothing to say, it just wallows in its misery, it was kind of upsetting to me.

I mean, and i'm a person who loved GTAIV.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Surely GTA and its styling has been beaten up by now but watching that video and comments about cynicism were very accurate

 

I finished GTA5 - but not to 100% like i thought it would grab me.  I did main story and most of the secondary activities, but it felt a lot like a chore and didnt respect my time.  I presume from praise for the series this was not always the case

 

I fall into a limited pocket of people who had never played a GTA game before - but did finish Saints Row 3 feeling great on the open world shoot-em up style.  Your description of "wallows in its misery" to be right on, everyone just seemed to be yelling at me the whole time; I have no intention going back into that world in another release of the series if the characters are the same, or would i ever think to do "chore" work in the online setting.

 

 

You have to imagine that they've got another one of these games in the works.  The revenue was just too great to try something completely different, it could be a few years out - maybe the tone will be better by then

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I can't imagine that Rockstar will change. They seem completely disconnected from criticism. They'll keep making the same game until their latest game crashes and burns.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Correct! As long as there are people that keep on playing their game, rockstar will continue living in gaming world.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now