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Started by Keef Monkey, 11 June, 2011, 09:35:35 AM

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radiator


Satanist

LOOK AT ALL DAT JUICE!

Mustve heard that about 50 times on my insane run through of Gears! Drove me mental.

I'm playing X-Com at the mo, its super addictive and I refuse to give it up. Brilliant!

I'm on about mission 30 and havent lost a guy yet, but that looks like its gonna change soon as the aliens have really stepped it up a gear.
Hmm, just pretend I wrote something witty eh?

NapalmKev

Quote from: radiator on 25 October, 2012, 03:26:17 PM
I also despise semi-interactive cutscenes, like where you have to walk your character really slowly while they have long, boring conversations or 'dream' sequences that only exist to serve the 'story' that I usually care nothing about.

A good example is the bit in one of the Call of Duty games where there's a whole level where you crawl around dying from a nuclear blast. Boring. Pretentious. I'm playing a Call of Duty game because I want to shoot people, and those kind of things really drain the life out of the game, especially on replays.

There's a section in Black ops where you have to walk around the Whitehouse very slowly while some guy waffles on. How they had the nerve to class it as a 'level' is beyond me.
Quality multiplayer though, and Zombies.

(I can't stand the Modern Warfare games)!

Cheers  :)
"Where once you fought to stop the trap from closing...Now you lay the bait!"

I, Cosh

We never really die.

Keef Monkey

Quick Time Event, basically when it flashes buttons on screen that you need to match.

Quote from: Professah Byah on 25 October, 2012, 03:01:50 PM
I'm not sure disc space is an issue these days given that a single layer blu-ray disc holds 25gb, and even with Microsoft determined to hold out against admitting defeat - several years after losing the format wars - bigger games on XB just come on more than one disc.

Surprisingly it is still an issue due to the submission process. There's a substantial additional cost involved in spreading a 360 game across discs (and I don't mean manufacturing costs, for a 2 disc game you're essentially paying for 2 submissions to the platform holder which, if multiple submissions are required before a pass, can reeeeeeeeally add up) so it's understandable that some folks would rather trim out some dialogue (or other assets) that are considered non-essential instead of doing that.

QTE's are a weird one. Narrative and character is actually really important to me in most games, I find those (along with the gameplay obviously) are the hooks that pull me through the whole experience in a lot of cases. I reckon QTE's are a decent enough way of keeping people feeling involved, but only if they feel like they relate to the actions on-screen. In some games it just feels like the cutscene pauses and waits for you to hit the unpause button. Used like that they're just ruining the flow of your cutscenes instead of adding to them.

Heavy Rain is almost entirely made up of QTE's, and I enjoyed that immensely, but I tried Azura's Wrath which was similarly QTE-driven and just didn't see the point. So I'm on the fence with that I guess!

Professor Bear

Ah, the Quick Time Event - those interactive cutscenes in games that serve no purpose whatsoever, except to elicit on-cue positive feedback from people watching (not playing) the game at trade shows.  Nobody likes them except game developers, because the positive feedback in the needlessly self-congratulatory environment of the trade cons is a boost to their egos.  Again we are back to the arrogance of the developer...

I, Cosh

Quote from: Keef Monkey on 25 October, 2012, 05:12:44 PM
Quick Time Event, basically when it flashes buttons on screen that you need to match.
Ah yes. Those suck.

To be honest, the only story I really need in a game is: "Blast off and strike the evil Bydo empire."
We never really die.

Professor Bear

Killzone is showing its age in some places, but mainly the graphics department and the thick-as-pigshit enemies who stand around in groups while you cook a grenade.  The pseudo-verite head-shaky-camera nonsense just makes it seem like your character is juddering when he walks and makes his movement feel slow, the controls largely mirror but pre-empt the now-standard COD layout just enough for the need to hold down the sprint button to annoy, and the enemies, for all their stupidity, seem to take a cartload of bullets to knock over, to the point I'm not sure now if I'm actually hitting them or the gun is spraying around them.
Having said all that, it's still great how it makes you work to progress rather than just being able to bull through enemies ala Halo or COD, and the story pits you as a guy performing strategically important missions but still just one schmuck on the battlefield and not that important to how things turn out, as pretty soon selectable characters come into the game dynamic and it becomes clear any tosser could do your job because if you play as one of the other three characters, they have different ways of getting around the field while still doing exactly what you do.  It's enjoyable and challenging, but cheap, too, and efinitely worth a punt if you like your FPS shooters old-school rather than tailored primarily for multiplayer.

Keef Monkey

I enjoyed it at the time, always meant to get round to playing the 2nd one, I've heard it's visually pretty stunning.

radiator

They're releasing a Killzone collection aren't they?

Professor Bear

They're releasing a trilogy collection of the main console games, but it doesn't include the PSP spin-offs.  The trilogy probably sounds like great value, but you can pick up K2 and K3 second hand for buttons as it is, meaning it might be cheaper in the long run to just buy Killzone as a download and look for the sequels in bargain bins or ex-rental sales in Blockbuster.

Quote from: Keef Monkey on 26 October, 2012, 08:07:59 AM
I enjoyed it at the time, always meant to get round to playing the 2nd one, I've heard it's visually pretty stunning.

It is, but was superseded by the visuals of Killzone 3.  Fair warning: make sure you download all the necessary patches before starting K2, as there's an odd control quirk added where it feels like there's a lag between when you pull in a direction and the camera responding.  It is utterly baffling why they added this element to the controls of a fast-paced shooter, but after months of complaints they eventually added the option to the in-game menu to disable it - for my money it was only at this point that K2 became playable.

Robert Frazer

I found a copy of the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection going cheap in CeX recently. I haven't played a Metal Gear game since Substance on the X-Box, so I've been having a whale of a time diving into and catching up on the hijinx of Kojima's weird, wild and wacky world of international geopolitics and a man's love for his cardboard box.
Latest Video - The ESSENTIAL Judge Dredd

Rog69

Quote from: Professah Byah on 26 October, 2012, 12:38:06 PM
It is, but was superseded by the visuals of Killzone 3.  Fair warning: make sure you download all the necessary patches before starting K2, as there's an odd control quirk added where it feels like there's a lag between when you pull in a direction and the camera responding.  It is utterly baffling why they added this element to the controls of a fast-paced shooter, but after months of complaints they eventually added the option to the in-game menu to disable it - for my money it was only at this point that K2 became playable.

That's interesting, I gave up on K2 years ago because of the horrible feel of the controls. To make matters worse it was the first console FPS that I ever played so I was also trying to get used to playing with a controller after years of using a mouse and keyboard. I might have to revisit the game and see if it's playable for me now.

Professor Bear

Uncharted: Golden Abyss, which I finally sat down and played.  It's a bit "mmmmmmmyeeeeeah."  The mechanics imported from the regular game are okay, if a bit fiddly with the Vita control layout, and the odd bit of Vita-only interactivity is well done (zooming using the rear touchpad), but 90 percent of the controls are gimmicky and get in the way of playing the game, especially the counter-attacking which is done by drawing on the touchscreen even though you initiate it by pressing the melee button, so you have to start the fight, then put the console down so you can take your hands off it and draw on the screen but have to do so in the space of about two seconds - whose bright idea was that?  It's a terrible game mechanic, especially when you realise that a lot of Vitas will be sold to kids and there's a high chance the machine will end up being dropped repeatedly because of that one gimmicky thing.  The bits where you have to rotate the machine to keep your balance also stick out because the Tomb Raider series dropped that exact same control quirk after one single game because it was universally hated, and that was before motion sensor controls came about, so that also sucks and I hate it to the point when it happens in the game I almost stop playing rather than have to go through with it.
On balance, it's merely okay.  Could have been a great game, but the gimmicky controls take up so much of how the game is played that it's inevitable you will find your attention drawn to the bits you hate.

Also OMGZ for XBL or PSN, a cheapo minigame where you shoot zombies with a limited amount of ammo in an effort to cause their bodily asplosions to take nearby zombies with them and cause a larger chain of asplosions.  Very basic, but oddly compelling.

Noisybast

Finished off The Walking Dead over the weekend. Now *there's* a well-written game. Nicely paced point & click character piece with a smattering of actiony bits throughout to spice things up. I'm not convinced your actions change the overall course of the story *that* much, but the illusion's certainly there. Heartily recommended!
Dan Dare will return for a new adventure soon, Earthlets!