Video Games: Join us... It is your Destiny

[The Anti-Targ]

Why not just take the game out altogether then? Just remove that damned trouble spot so you can carry on without having to, you know, play the game.

You're comparing platformer save systems to RPG save systems.

So what you want is... missed a jump. reload. jump. miss. reload. jump. miss. reload. jump. miss. reload...? That's more fun than having to redo a minute or two of the level?

You would have hated the NES.

Forget hating NES. The Souls games would cause absolute nightmares. No checkpoints whatsoever in levels that are long and difficult. rinsing and repeating sections of Trine are as a gentle mist on a summers day compared to Demon's Souls.

[DeathYon]

Checkpoints definitely used to exist on PC games as well as console ones. In fact, the mighty Half-Life had autosaves upon entering a new area. The difference is that the PC games usually allowed quicksaves as well. Checkpoint/autosave-only is more common on consoles, however, as it saves memory. You hit a certain point in the game and the game can save to a default setting at that point, only needing to remember how much ammo and health you have (and commonly many console games, particularly shooter, give you regenerating health and ammo to save that as well). Quicksaves tended to take up a lot of space - they still do, check out the quicksave folders in your PC games to see how massive they can get - so checkpoints are an efficient way of removing the problem from consoles, where memory and storage space used to be vastly more limited.

This avoids the problem the Creation/Gamebryo Engine games (Skyrim, FO3, NV, Oblivion) had on console where each save file had to be humongous to remember the position of every changed state in the world, eventually causing the game to melt down and stop working properly (on console, anyway).

Checkpoints are getting weirder. Far Cry 3 had this thing where if you hit the checkpoint and died, you'd reload at the nearest village or outpost rather than where the checkpoint triggered. That was strange.

You don't build a base in either game. In both of them you have a pool of units available and assign them to the dropship to start the mission. GC1 is pretty hardcore: you don't get reinforcements and you can't save mid-mission (!) which forces you to play very tactically. It's rewarding and looks amazing for a game released in 2000, but it's pretty tough.

GC2 is more user-friendly: your dropship now serves as a mobile base (sort of), distributing reinforcements to the map based on your success and remaining on station as a gun platform. You can also save mid-mission. Both games are focused on mobile warfare. There's a couple of defence missions but mostly they focus on you taking the fight to the enemy. There's no resource gathering either.

WiC uses a similar system (reinforcements can arrive mid-mission, no resources gathering) and is much easier the other two games. Same developers and still pretty good.

I'll try GC1 out and see how I feel about it.

The difficulty sounds fun. I like a challenge.

Thanks again.

[Inigima]

Mordor is like if Assassin's Creed were fun.

[eyenon15]

Mordor is like if Assassin's Creed were fun.

I'll second that, great description.

[Jabronius Maximus]

Mordor is like if Assassin's Creed were fun.

Outside of AC4, I'll agree. The ship combat in that was awesome.

Wasn't SoM originally an Arkham game? I remember reading somewhere that they changed course early on with development of this game.

[Proudfeet]

Beccause with "save anywhere" I could save before the point that is giving me trouble, instead of tediously repeating everything else since the last checkpoint just to reach the place where I am having difficulties. This is pure BS and a waste of my time, IMHO.

However, the by far biggest BS is that in Trine checkpoints and savepoints aren't one and the same, despite the latter also being automatic. So, if you turned off the game before reaching the savepoint (which also coincides with completing a whole location, as far as I can tell) all your progress is gone. IMHO, this is inexcusable and inexplicable.

Ah, right. I don't agree with your vitriol for it, but I see your point. It is a chore to repeat stuff that are neither challenging or fun.

[MerenthaClone]

If you liked XCOM and want something more classic (and have the EW expansion) the mod Long War just released a pretty monster version that looks great. I played the shit out of beta 13 and it was amazing, and what they've supposedly cooked up for b14 looks even better. They squash a lot of vanilla bugs and give you a lot more flexibility tactically (and send the difficulty through the roof).

Be warned, you're expected to lose soldiers, missions, countries, and planes in LW, whereas getting through a completely clean run in vanilla or EW is pretty easy.

edit: And Shadow of Mordor is great. The orcs are just so...alive. And adorable. I've taken to roaming the night and waiting until I find an orc telling ghost stories about Talion, then jumping out of the bushes and killing him (or someone else at the fire if the story was good enough) right at the climax of the story.

edit2: I wonder what the orcs do with the pile of Talion-bodies they have, since, well, some of the dialogue implies that your body sticks around. Like, I know the orcs brutalize it and stuff, but at some point, is there, like, a mass grave of Talions? Because that's kinda weird.

[DeathYon]

If you liked XCOM and want something more classic (and have the EW expansion) the mod Long War just released a pretty monster version that looks great. I played the shit out of beta 13 and it was amazing, and what they've supposedly cooked up for b14 looks even better. They squash a lot of vanilla bugs and give you a lot more flexibility tactically (and send the difficulty through the roof).

Be warned, you're expected to lose soldiers, missions, countries, and planes in LW, whereas getting through a completely clean run in vanilla or EW is pretty easy.

edit: And Shadow of Mordor is great. The orcs are just so...alive. And adorable. I've taken to roaming the night and waiting until I find an orc telling ghost stories about Talion, then jumping out of the bushes and killing him (or someone else at the fire if the story was good enough) right at the climax of the story.

edit2: I wonder what the orcs do with the pile of Talion-bodies they have, since, well, some of the dialogue implies that your body sticks around. Like, I know the orcs brutalize it and stuff, but at some point, is there, like, a mass grave of Talions? Because that's kinda weird.

Thanks :-)

I play a lot of stuff on PC, but I played Enemy Unknown on my PS3.

So Shadow of Mordor is good? A lot of people have been comparing it to Assassin's Creed, which I'm not a fan of.

Yahtzee seemed to like it.

[Maia]

Forget hating NES. The Souls games would cause absolute nightmares. No checkpoints whatsoever in levels that are long and difficult. rinsing and repeating sections of Trine are as a gentle mist on a summers day compared to Demon's Souls.

See, from what I hear about the Souls, they are really built around this concept. And I also understand that the loot is not lost and the bosses you have killed remain dead if you die. I.e. you don't have to redo everything - there is a sense of progress. So, while this is not a game that I am likely to pick up, I absolutely see the point and can imagine how it could be great for people who enjoy "mastering" games.

That's very different from shoving the savepoint systems with infrequent savepoints and without "save anywhere" into the games that don't benefit from it at all. Just because "it has always been done that way" (on consoles). Like Trine. Or the first Mafia. A trully brilliant game, but I have nearly put my fist through the monitor on a couple of occasions. There was that race that... Aargh!

Or even GTA. Well, at least it is because it became really popular on PS2. But put "save anywhere" into your PC and mobile ports, for Pete's sake!

[Inigima]

Thanks :-)

I play a lot of stuff on PC, but I played Enemy Unknown on my PS3.

So Shadow of Mordor is good? A lot of people have been comparing it to Assassin's Creed, which I'm not a fan of.

Yahtzee seemed to like it.

Most people seem to love it. I'm only an hour and change in but I'm enjoying it. Giant Bomb has a Quick Look up that helped sell me on it.

[Inigima]

Played another hour before work :lol: still loving it. I wanna play Alien: Isolation too, and Civ Beyond Earth, and I think there was something else cool coming out the 24th too?

I haven't cared about a AAA game since, like, Tomb Raider, I think. All of a sudden it's like the floodgates have opened.

[Fez]

Played another hour before work :lol: still loving it. I wanna play Alien: Isolation too, and Civ Beyond Earth, and I think there was something else cool coming out the 24th too?

I haven't cared about a AAA game since, like, Tomb Raider, I think. All of a sudden it's like the floodgates have opened.

I haven't had that much interest in Mordor yet because I didn't really like the combat in Arkham Asylum. But yesterday Microsoft released its Xbone controller for PCs (its the same controller as the others, but it comes packaged with a nine-foot micro-USB cable for no extra cost), and I bought it so that I can get in on some of the other AAA games coming down the pipe (I tried mouse and keyboard playing again, and I hate it; except for strategy games). There's been so much good word of mouth about the game that I may pick it up, but there's a lot of other stuff I wanna play that's coming in the next few months:

Civ Beyond Earth

Lords of the Fallen (maybe)

Far Cry 4

Dragon Age Inquisition

Elite: Dangerous

Pillars of Eternity (although I think this got pushed back a couple months)

[Inigima]

Here, thread, I got you this.

https://2mellomakes.bandcamp.com/album/final-fantasy-the-3-6-chambers

[Rhom]

Here, thread, I got you this.

https://2mellomakes.bandcamp.com/album/final-fantasy-the-3-6-chambers

:lol:

I liked Shimmy Shimmy Strago. :lmao:

[fuseprime]

Here, thread, I got you this.

https://2mellomakes.bandcamp.com/album/final-fantasy-the-3-6-chambers

YES! Method Man is perfect for this!

[The Drunkard]

I bought Charlemagne, but it weirds out on me whenever I play Karl. I can never reload the saved game, it's just got a big 'BROKEN SAVE [something]' underneath the file name.

Otherwise it's fairly fun. I really, really want to see what sending someone into hiding does. The description makes it seem like they'd come back very changed.