I Had a Random Thought (About Video Games)

[Dewar]

Speaking of Demon's Souls, I've been playing it, and I'm not loving it the same way I did Dark Souls. It seems designed to be incredibly irritating to the player. Like not even the Anor Londo archers are as annoying as Demon's is practically all the time.

 

For example, in the Valley of Defilement, there's this huge pack of rats, they're tiny, nearly impossible to hit with most weapons, and if they bite you even once you catch the plague, which slowly kills you and can only be cured by an item that costs 2000 souls to obtain. And when you get past them, you have to fight this boss that's basically a giant mass of leeches, which has one attack where it flails its limbs around the whole arena that has very little windup and is impossible to dodge

 

So after getting fed up with that, I go to the Shrine of Storms, get past the first level, no problems, get through some of the second, there's this shadow creature that can shoot a laser that sweeps the whole room and is impossible to evade, at that point I just laugh and turn off the game.

 

I really don't mind a challenging game, but this isn't like Dark Souls, or God Hand, where the play is so engaging that I'm enjoying myself even when I'm dying alot, it's just tedious.

Like, I feel the urge to keep playing it, but it's the same, self-flagellating urge that made me beat COD4 on veteran despite the utter hell of anti-fun it was.

 

Hmm, I didn't have much of a problem with the leach boss, but it was one of the last places I went so I think I just burned him down from range before he was able to do much. The rats were annoying at first, but I found a spot on the stairs where I could stand and reliably hit them with my weapon and then it became no problem after that. The Shadowlurkers were one of the most challenging sections of the game for me, and I only really got past it by memorizing the room and dashing as fast as I could.

 

I really enjoyed Demon Souls, even though I played Dark Souls first and then went back to play Demon Souls later. I really enjoyed the way the world was configured with the central hub and I was really surprised at the variety of enemy behaviors that felt less predictable than the AI in Dark Souls. It was definitely a lot harder though.

[Patrick R]

Playing a lot of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 reminded me there was a time when the accepted physics and rules of momentum in side-scrollers didn't just default to "Super Mario Bros 3". I never was able to get into the Sonic games when I tried to revisit them because I found the controls too floaty and terrible but once you get used to it it's actually a fascinating system of movement. Early zones you can pretty much just hold right and jump but it's not long before you're forced to analyze the flow of the levels and figure out what combination of spin-dashing and bouncing off enemies and jumping you're going to need to get past obstacles.

 

Also the game gets hard as shit as soon as you get to Metropolis Zone. I got there with 10 lives and 4 continues and spent them all beating the first two acts.

[syntheticgerbil]

I remember playing Sonic 2 over and over as a kid just accumulating all of these damn lives and continues to only fail on those last two one hit kill bosses. That was a bad idea, the game was so cheap there.

 

Also I was never able to beat the game with all emeralds as a child, because it has one glaring design error when you get them: once you jump after 50 rings, you become Super Sonic no mattter what. So instead of making the game easier, it makes it so much harder in the end because you can't amass all of those one ups and continues by the end of the game by hoarding rings on the earlier easier levels.

 

Luckily you can just save in modern versions.

[dartmonkey]

I played much more Sonic than Mario as a kid. Sonic 2 physics felt very precise to me whereas Mario was twitchy and precarious. Sonic's invulnerability while jumping made the experience calmer and it flowed better - with Mario I was always on edge and invariably walked into a goomba or some such easily avoided thing.

Also I was never able to beat the game with all emeralds as a child, because it has one glaring design error when you get them: once you jump after 50 rings, you become Super Sonic no mattter what. So instead of making the game easier, it makes it so much harder in the end because you can't amass all of those one ups and continues by the end of the game by hoarding rings on the earlier easier levels.

I may be misremembering but I'm pretty certain you have to press A again mid-jump to transform into Super Sonic. Difficult to resist, but avoidable if you wanted to hoard rings.

The other day I found a hack which puts the Sonic 2 sprite into Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Bliss!

[syntheticgerbil]

Only in Sonic 3 and on does it have the double jump function for Super Sonic.

 

Honestly, I didn't even know Super Sonic was in Sonic 2 until much later in life. I didn't see any point to collecting the emeralds those dozens of times I played it back then. The whole thing that got me started was the save file in Sonic 3 indicated emeralds on the slot. I don't think I owned any game manuals as a kid and no internet to get to then.

[Griddlelol]

I was trying to think of what the best moments/entire games have the best "non-direct narrative" (i.e. no walls of text or cinematic cut scenes). 

 

The initial games that came to mind were Far Cry 2, Super Metroid and Shadow of Mordor (only because I played it so recently). What are the bests out there?

[Bjorn]

All the Souls games, for sure.  

[Sno]

Shadow of the Colossus and Ico are predominantly narratives implied through tone and environment. (Not unlike the Souls games.)

... Super Metroid? Super Metroid's kind of in the same boat as the above. You could extend that out to the Prime games as well. (With the exception of the third one, which is built to be very cinematic.)

I want to say the Myst games fit in here too, because their environments are just oozing with subtle narrative details. In each of those games you will invariably at some point sit down and start reading dozens of pages of explicitly conveyed story, but the games are such that you will probably know most of the story just from seeing the places you go to.

[eot]

Maybe not what you're getting at, but Deus Ex has two quite significant narrative choices that are never explicitly presented to you.

Saving Paul, and killing Anna Navarre onboard the 747.

I think they're both brilliant moments and I wish more games tried that sort of thing.

[Trip Hazard]

Man, Deus Ex is the best. Still.

 

Unrelated to anything else: DA-O is a hard game, even on easy mode. Room full of thugs and blood-mages. Where's the "very easy mode" option?

[Bjorn]

Man, Deus Ex is the best. Still.

 

Unrelated to anything else: DA-O is a hard game, even on easy mode. Room full of thugs and blood-mages. Where's the "very easy mode" option?

 

Back when it released, I remember lots and lots of people having to drop the difficulty down to Easy for awhile, as the default balance is definitely tough.

[Architecture]

I was trying to think of what the best moments/entire games have the best "non-direct narrative" (i.e. no walls of text or cinematic cut scenes). 

 

The initial games that came to mind were Far Cry 2, Super Metroid and Shadow of Mordor (only because I played it so recently). What are the bests out there?

Half-Life 2?

[Dewar]

Man, Deus Ex is the best. Still.

 

Unrelated to anything else: DA-O is a hard game, even on easy mode. Room full of thugs and blood-mages. Where's the "very easy mode" option?

 

Depending on where you are in the game, there are certain types of bad guys who are much harder than others, depending on your character build and companions. Personally, I found playing through some of the DLC stuff a lot easier than the core game, and you get some pretty nice items to help you out.

[SuperBiasedMan]

The very easy mode is searching for a mod that gives you an item to instantly kill all enemies you can use at any point. I got this mod and have no regrets.

[eot]

I was playing some D2, clearing out the Den of Evil and I had my quest log open. At the end it tells you how many monsters are left, and for a second it flashed to 666. Can't be a coincidence!

[eot]

CCP put together a trailer that uses player voice coms and it turned out well I think

[Sno]

That might be one of the most effective pieces of video game marketing i've ever seen, it just sells the idea of Eve so hard. (Though I find it really amusing that the booming swell of music at the end is accompinied with frantic, rapid-fire images of spreadsheets and other UI elements.)

 

I saw yesterday a few threads on Reddit about the video where persons who claimed to be the people featured in the video were showing up to talk down naysayers that were yelling about how no real players would ever be as organized as they seem in this video. According to the people who were allegedly featured in the video, the voice clips are apparently all pulled from real community videos and real voice chat channels during real in-game fights. (Though the fights themselves are obviously re-staged quite cinematically for the trailer.)

[eot]

Oh yeah, the audio is real. Some of it's from here for example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUZYwCK7PxQ

Also, if you have an hour to waste:

[Bjorn]

I'm enjoying South Park: The Stick of Truth WAY more than I thought I would.  I figured it would be enjoyable, but I'm loving the opening few hours of it. 

[dartmonkey]

Just tried Sonic Adventure for the first time in many many years. Blimey. I quite like the character models (when their jelly jaws aren't moving). And that's about the only good thing I can say about it. It's interesting to me how comprehensively they wiped away what I'd consider the main components of the games (precise control, flowing level design that allows for speed, colourful diverse environments and catchy electro-funk music) in the step to 3D. The opening cutscene very literally washes it all away with a tidal wave through a grey human city. Perhaps it's to do with the long gap between Sonic & Knuckles and this and the aborted projects in between, but...blimey. What a load of rubbish.

[JonCole]

I'm enjoying South Park: The Stick of Truth WAY more than I thought I would.  I figured it would be enjoyable, but I'm loving the opening few hours of it. 

 

That game is seriously one of my GOTY's. It has solid mechanics, kept me laughing the whole way through it, and didn't overstay its welcome (which is astounding when you consider most other modern RPGs).

[Bjorn]

That game is seriously one of my GOTY's. It has solid mechanics, kept me laughing the whole way through it, and didn't overstay its welcome (which is astounding when you consider most other modern RPGs).

 

Agreed, I just finished day 2, and I continue to be super impressed with it.  There's a ton of good design decisions in it, and it all just meshes together so well. 

[Griddlelol]

I had a lot of fun with Stick of Truth, but I never finished it. One pretty pathetic thing annoyed me: your abilities like stun etc wouldn't work on bosses. What's the point in letting me choose these abilities if I can't use them when I need them?

 

I dunno, dumb reason, but I really hate when that happens.

[Bjorn]

I finished it!  Only took about 19 hours, which like Jon said, pretty short for a modern RPG. 

 

I understand keeping a boss from being stunned.  The boss fight designs in South Park would have let you stun cycle a lot of bosses, keeping them from ever attacking you.  Which feels wrong.  I found bosses being immune to gross/bleed/fire more annoying, as my build was focused around DoTs.

 

I'm super impressed with the design of the game though.  I particularly loved how in most of the main story areas, you could approach enemies as a puzzle to solve (using the environment against them) or fight them directly.  I also liked how each town exploration part was split up by a different kind of area, so you weren't always just running around town.  Canada was fantastic.

 

I actually thought about starting a second playthrough with a different class, but I don't think it's mechanically deep enough to justify a second run. 

[Griddlelol]

I finished it!  Only took about 19 hours, which like Jon said, pretty short for a modern RPG. 

 

I understand keeping a boss from being stunned.  The boss fight designs in South Park would have let you stun cycle a lot of bosses, keeping them from ever attacking you.  Which feels wrong.  I found bosses being immune to gross/bleed/fire more annoying, as my build was focused around DoTs.

 

When I said "etc" it was because I couldn't remember all the DoT spell names. I played as a thief and my entire build was made around stunning to increase damage and DoTs. Was just really frustrating for bosses to essentially be auto-attack for my character.