tegan

I Had a Random Thought (About Video Games)

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I found what little I played of Last of Us to be really goddamn annoyingly clunky.

 

But I intend to go back. I was just interrupted by real life at the time.

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I played, finished and, for the most part, enjoyed Uncharted 1. But I think the main draw for me, at the time, was how it looked. Looking back at it now, I dunno if I agree with my own assessment in that regard.

 

I own both Uncharted 2 and 3 for some reason (well, roommates), but I can't bring myself to get through more than half of Uncharted 2 so I'm probably done with the series 

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I played Uncharted 2 a year or two after it came out. It was a good game mostly. Maybe an 8/10? The ending FUCKING SUCKED. The entire temple fight against humans and then against mutant bullshit really marred a fun experience up to that point.

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I thought they were all alright. I don't remember having issues with controls, but it's been a while. It's basically competent third person shooting plus increasingly crazy set-pieces plus a knockoff Indiana Jones plot (not necessarily a complaint...more a matter of personal taste). Two things that bothered me in those games were that there were too many shooting sections and it got tedious, and that Drake is portrayed as a Regular Dude but he's a fucking superhero killing machine which they try to hide it by making him grunt with effort when he does anything.

 

^^^ this. Also, the last part of all the games where the up the fighting with some new godlike creatures which sucks every time

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I loved the older Tomb Raiders for their platforming, environments, and sense of mystique (probably because I was younger and they were some of my earliest PS1 purchases). The combat was always terrible, though.

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After playing The Last of Us, I have absolute zero interest in playing Uncharted. It's like Allan Quatermain & The Highly Polished Yet Clunky Game.

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What I loved about TLoU is that Joel was a complete bastard, yet because he was the PC, it was hard not to like him and sympathise with him.

 

In Uncharted, they try incredibly hard to get you to like Drake, but it just fell flat with me. He just seemed like an asshole.

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The Last of Us never really grabbed me. I liked the story well enough but by the first stealth insta kill mushroom sequence I kinda felt that the gameplay wasn't satisfying enough to stick through it all.

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TLoU was the only time I felt like messy stealth was done well. You wanted to try stealth things because it was safer and less resource intensive. It's very tense while you're attempting stealth particularly because of how the clickers behave, and then as soon as a mistake has been made, you instantly know and you scramble for the 5 bullets and 2 shivs you have, hoping that you can get out of it without losing everything you have left.

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I agree, I loved the feeling of panic I got when the stealth broke down. It's similar to MSGV, except in MGSV you proceed to utilise rockets and thousands of bullets to kill 10s of people. In TLOU, you are forced to stand there, getting shot while you aim that last bullet you have to ensure a headshot. 

 

The clickers were a bit overly punishing though. The church yard section is what stops me replaying the game. Too frustrating.

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Eh it wasn't just the stealth sequences. The core gameplay loop was solid enough and as an early Uncharted (1&2) fan it was something I'd previously liked. But with some games I just get to a point where I think I've seen enough to get the gist like with Shadow of Mordor or Bulletstorm.

Partially related I've also noticed that after playing thousands of hours of very fluid multiplayer shooters I'm getting quite specific tastes in what I want from other shooty games especially singleplayer games. I think weaker or different shooty gameplay can always be enhanced by adding other players who bring their own playstyles to the game. I play games like HL2, F.E.A.R, Halo, or even Mass Effect in a very fast and loose, on the fly style. So I've found that the less the game allows for that style, the more time I spend crouched by a shoulder high wall, the less patience I have for it. -except MGS, Fallout, Elder Scrolls or Borderlands, it can be really fun picking apart the enemy at a slow pace with those games. It doesn't mean I don't think tactically either, even in the fast paced fast movement style games (like TF2, NS2, DirtyBomb, or Battleborn) the other players and challenges bring about huge challenges in how to overcome their strategies. It just means I really enjoy throwing myself into the thick of the problem and solving my way out of it.

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I think I enjoy stealth more as a puzzle than I do as a prelude to combat. I was always disappointed when I'd make too much noise and have to switch over to combat, and most of the zombie sequences involved me dying several times when I explored, got spotted, and then got easily surrounded. I never worked out if there was a good way to get out of combat and drop back to a cagey kind of stealth.

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Out of curiosity moddy, do you like stealth games in general? I'm incredibly forgiving to stealth games because it's just my favourite genre. It seemed to die out for a while, but there's been a beautiful resurgence in it recently. 

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 I've gotta get cracking on other games before I lose even more time to Xenoblade at the beginning of December. I finally finished Kirby and the Rainbow Curse yesterday, which says something I think about how bad the backlog is for 2015 alone. Gotta get ready for the GOTY list.

 

Read this in another thread. Definitely not a discussion for that thread, and I certainly don't want to challenge the assertion. This isn't directed towards the person, just the statement. But I had a random thought...

 

No, you don't.

 

We don't have to play enough games to have a GOTY list! We don't need to 1) build a backlog, 2) feel guilty about a backlog, or 3) consume a backlog. You don't have to race through games, you don't have to finish one game to start another game. I'm not saying one shouldn't do these things, or that it is wrong in some way to approach a hobby in that fashion. We have just somehow patterned our gaming years after game reviewers, who talk about having to approach games in that way out of job necessity. I'm merely saying that these statements are not of necessity, they're of desire. We don't need to consume any certain amount of games, we just want to play them.

 

I played a hundred hours of Witcher, and I'm about to dive into an untold number of hours of Fallout, and if MGS and Just Cause get left by the wayside because of that... that's ok.

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I need to do all of those things.

 

Right into my veins!

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I always feel guilty about a back log because it feels like wasted money. I don't have a back log because I want one, but because I'm an idiot who buys too many things.

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I try to keep a decent record of how much I'm spending on games, and even though I have a silly big Steam backlog, I'm spending less now than I was a few years ago and playing more games.  I'm okay with that, even if there are dozens of games I'll never actually get around to playing.

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Out of curiosity moddy, do you like stealth games in general? I'm incredibly forgiving to stealth games because it's just my favourite genre. It seemed to die out for a while, but there's been a beautiful resurgence in it recently.

I like stealth games or at least versions of them. I grew up with Tenchu and MGS, always liked going stealth in Oblivion, really enjoyed being as stealthy as I could in Dishonoured and the Batmans, I loved being a ninja alien in AVP, my MGSV gameplay is mostly stealthy, I really liked what I played in Mark of The Ninja, idk it depends. Some of the MGS VR missions basically had a no spotting requirement and I didn't like that style of stealth.

Coming back to my home turf, the multiplayer fps NS2 involves tonnes of stealthy play relying on hunting other players as aliens either to ambush them or sneak past and take out their economy, or as a marine setting up an ambush while building things that can be heard from a room away hoping you can get a phase gate up in time to kill a base before their heavies notice and engage you.

So I suppose the type of stealth I favour is the version where you can still fight back in a quick & dirty struggle. Or at least smoke bomb to safety.

If I can pull time away from Path of Exile's Diablo2 like clicking hell I'm going to go try out Thief Gold.

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Read this in another thread. Definitely not a discussion for that thread, and I certainly don't want to challenge the assertion. This isn't directed towards the person, just the statement. But I had a random thought...

 

No, you don't.

 

We don't have to play enough games to have a GOTY list! We don't need to 1) build a backlog, 2) feel guilty about a backlog, or 3) consume a backlog. You don't have to race through games, you don't have to finish one game to start another game. I'm not saying one shouldn't do these things, or that it is wrong in some way to approach a hobby in that fashion. We have just somehow patterned our gaming years after game reviewers, who talk about having to approach games in that way out of job necessity. I'm merely saying that these statements are not of necessity, they're of desire. We don't need to consume any certain amount of games, we just want to play them.

 

I played a hundred hours of Witcher, and I'm about to dive into an untold number of hours of Fallout, and if MGS and Just Cause get left by the wayside because of that... that's ok.

 

I would respond to this, "you don't, but everyone has different emotional needs from their hobbies." I am extremely goal oriented, especially when I get depressed, and having goals for my gaming hobby allows me to actually take the time on the tough days to play and feel like I've accomplished something, even if that accomplishment is in my own head. Otherwise, I'd rarely get to play games because there are always other things to accomplish. 

 

Edit: Also, I would guess hyperbole in that particular quote.

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I would respond to this, "you don't, but everyone has different emotional needs from their hobbies." I am extremely goal oriented, especially when I get depressed, and having goals for my gaming hobby allows me to actually take the time on the tough days to play and feel like I've accomplished something, even if that accomplishment is in my own head. Otherwise, I'd rarely get to play games because there are always other things to accomplish. 

 

Edit: Also, I would guess hyperbole in that particular quote.

 

I realize this could also go into the pedantry thread because it's orbiting around semantics, but I didn't make the comment about what I like or dislike, or my feelings on how media should or should not be consumed. It's a desire and not a necessity. That's the long and the short of my comment. Sometimes I like digging in and saying "look at all the games I played!"  I tend to orient my goals towards accomplishments in a single game rather than spreading them out (Destiny folks can probably vouch for that from me), but I acknowledge it's my choice to do so and I could spread out my play time more for sure.

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I don't particularly worry about my backlog being wasted as much because my purchases are part to get the product but also financial incentive to the people who made it. I sometimes feel bad if I play one game so much I have no time for others, but in a way that's the opposite idea to what sparked this. I'm pretty quick to shelve games though. I only finish a fraction of the ones I play. Not out of inertia, I decide to set them aside and move on when I feel like I'm done as much as I want to be.

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Man, when I find a game I can play loads of I'm super happy. It's like YES! This is why I do games, everything else can wait until this is done!

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So though we aren't reviewers, I can understand the desire to finish games before GOTY time. Generally speaking, the discussions on a game happen around when they are released and then during end of the year GOTY talks. If you want to be able to engage in those conversations, either with friends, or on forums, or by reading/listening to the games press, then you'll want to have played them, especially games you know you'll enjoy. For the most part, once GOTY happens, discussions on any given game stop. It won't diminish the experience of the game itself, but you definitely miss out on something.

 

Personally, the only pressure or guilt I feel when it comes to a backlog is that I really want to play all these games and I'm not...there's a reason I bought those things. It's not like I feel obligated to play them but I want to and seeing all these (hopefully) great games just sit there makes me feel sad.

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It seems like half my Facebook feed is playing it, and those aren't generally people who talk about games a bunch on Facebook. 

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