Video Games: May the force of your wallet be with you

[Kalbear]

Have you done Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare 2? It's a class-based shooter with a fun co-op mode and pretty reasonably competitive play. 

[Rhom]

48 minutes ago, LordImp said:

I did the same mistake , Hate myself for it.

 

Is Last of us open world ? 

No.  For the most part, It’s a glorified hallway.

Its Naughty Dog, so think Uncharted without the climbing and add zombies.

[Jace, Extat]

33 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

I'm yer huckleberry.

If you're looking for the position of Teddy, it's gonna be between you and @Tywin et al. . Someone's gonna be coming with me to Escelante one way or another.

[Jace, Extat]

20 minutes ago, Rhom said:

No.  For the most part, It’s a glorified hallway.

Its Naughty Dog, so think Uncharted without the climbing and add zombies.

And underwear-soiling terror if you're HaF.

[The Anti-Targ]

1 hour ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Thanks for suggestions.  I saw Rocket League and wanted to stick with co-op rather than versus play.  I'll look at Crash Bandicoot.

I had looked at Towerfall Ascension and Alienation.  The both seem fun in gameplay (we have some classics like Galaga), but the graphics are basic that I doubt they'll feel cool to him.  They're reminiscent of 1980's arcade play.

I have not heard of Jak and Daxter, I'll check it out.

You can co-op and vs in Rocket League split screen. So I would say go for it if you had already considered it but dismissed only on the basis of assuming it was vs only.

The original Jak and Daxter was "pure" 3D platforming. Jak 2 and 3 are more the style of Ratchet and Clank, but are better games. Alienation I wouldn't say is basic (as in low-fi) graphics, it's just that high quality graphics in twinstick shooters is not really a feature of that style of game. Still loads of fun. Towerfall Ascension I agree is very oldskool graphics which could be offputting for some people. I haven't played it myself by my (university aged) sons have played it plenty. The main reason I haven't played is because I think I would be bad at it.

[The Anti-Targ]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

Have you done Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare 2? It's a class-based shooter with a fun co-op mode and pretty reasonably competitive play. 

I second this. Though I only got PvZ:GW 1. It's a fun game. GW2 probably suffered because it got a bit shitty with the microtransactions but the core game still seems to be fun.

 

1 hour ago, Rhom said:

No.  For the most part, It’s a glorified hallway.

Its Naughty Dog, so think Uncharted without the climbing and add zombies.

Which, IMO, is a good thing when you are trying to tell a story with a tight narrative. Tight narrative and open world have a tricky relationship that are hard (though not impossible) to do well. Even in open-ish world games that I love (Dragon Age, Mass Effect) any sense of tension and urgency in the narrative is diminished when you can hive off for 10 hours (of game play and who knows how long of in-game time) and do a bunch of irrelevant side quests and get back to the main story at your leisure.

[Rhom]

24 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Which, IMO, is a good thing when you are trying to tell a story with a tight narrative. Tight narrative and open world have a tricky relationship that are hard (though not impossible) to do well. Even in open-ish world games that I love (Dragon Age, Mass Effect) any sense of tension and urgency in the narrative is diminished when you can hive off for 10 hours (of game play and who knows how long of in-game time) and do a bunch of irrelevant side quests and get back to the main story at your leisure.

Amen

[Gorn]

7 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Which, IMO, is a good thing when you are trying to tell a story with a tight narrative. Tight narrative and open world have a tricky relationship that are hard (though not impossible) to do well. Even in open-ish world games that I love (Dragon Age, Mass Effect) any sense of tension and urgency in the narrative is diminished when you can hive off for 10 hours (of game play and who knows how long of in-game time) and do a bunch of irrelevant side quests and get back to the main story at your leisure.

There are open world games who accomplished it without losing the tension. For example, in Fallout 1, you have a fixed time limit for the main quest. However, you're a stranger in a strange land, with only the faintest idea of where the main quest item might be, and it makes perfect sense within the narrative to explore as much as possible and do favors for people you meet who might help you. In Baldur's Gate 2, you need the help of allies to accomplish your goal, and those allies demand a large sum of gold, so you are forced to work as a mercenary for a while to collect that gold.

Also, you can tell a great open-world narrative without the sense of tension and urgency. In Witcher 3, you are following a cold trail of someone you haven't seen in years and who isn't in any immediate danger, so while you're in the area, might as well check the notice board for witcher contracts, right?

[A True Kaniggit]

I'd say Morrowind did I good job at that as well. With the first main mission essentially being, "go out and build a rep". 

[Rhom]

I have come to realize that have very little patience for "open world" games with a story.  

I really did enjoy Andromeda, but the story was spread too thin.  Like Bilbo says to Gandalf, " I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread."  That's how I feel about open world games that attempt to tell a story.  I'm still convinced that had Andromeda taken the same route as the trilogy and essentially had a few hallways with connected story beats, it would have been much better received.  The only thing that kept me going was that the actual gameplay was a huge improvement over the original trilogy. 

I played 20 hours of Final Fantasy XV and put it aside.  (Of course the gameplay in that one was non-existent.)

Conversely, games without a story... I'll play open world there for hours for some reason.  I put more time into No Man's Sky than I really should have.  World of Warcraft sucked actual months from my life.

But when I sit down to a game with a story and the major stuff is spread 20 hours apart, I just can't follow along these days.

So when I said that TLoU was a glorified hallway, I really did mean it as a compliment.

[Iskaral Pust]

15 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Have you done Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare 2? It's a class-based shooter with a fun co-op mode and pretty reasonably competitive play. 

I had not come across that.  I'll check it out.  Thanks 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

14 hours ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

If you're looking for the position of Teddy, it's gonna be between you and @Tywin et al. . Someone's gonna be coming with me to Escelante one way or another.

Huh?

[LordImp]

Is COD: WWII any good? Gamespot gave it 9/10 whila a rewiever in my homecountry gave it 4/10 , kinda confusing.

[Jace, Extat]

24 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Huh?

 

[Whiskeyjack]

I'll take a 10-20 hour game with a good, linear story over a 50-100 hour open world game any day.  Even if the open world game has a solid main quest.

Can understand if somebody else feels differently.  But for me its not close.

[Werthead]

Star Citizen is looking completely insane. They've built a planet covered in a city like Coruscant and they've made it completely flyable, so you can roar over it, land on multiple different landing platforms, dogfight between towers etc. It looks immense.

What exactly the game will be like is unclear, but as a tech demo this is easily the most impressive thing I've ever seen in a game.

[Rhom]

2 hours ago, Whiskeyjack said:

I'll take a 10-20 hour game with a good, linear story over a 50-100 hour open world game any day.  Even if the open world game has a solid main quest.

Can understand if somebody else feels differently.  But for me its not close.

That's exactly where I am.  A big part of it for me is this season of life I'm in.  I remember clearly my days of expecting a JRPG to give me 100 hours or more.  I poured over Xenogears and Dragon Quest VII.  Now, its hard for me to take the time away from family responsibilities to put into a game like that.

So a game like TLoU that delivers a big story punch in a shorter timeframe is the exact kind of game I like.

[Fez]

3 hours ago, Whiskeyjack said:

I'll take a 10-20 hour game with a good, linear story over a 50-100 hour open world game any day.  Even if the open world game has a solid main quest.

Can understand if somebody else feels differently.  But for me its not close.

I almost completely agree. I have only two exceptions so far: Dragon Age: Inquisition and The Witcher 3 (and I'm hoping Assassin's Creed: Origins, but it's way too early to tell). Beyond those, I have basically no patience for massive open world games and their tedious padding.

Nearly all my favorite games of the past few years have taken under 20 hours to beat (with quite a few being indies that took less than 5 hours). And the only that haven't are non-open, grinding games I can play while listening to podcasts (like The Darkest Dungeon).

[Corvinus85]

While I may agree on which type of game I like to play more, I would be more willing to pay $60+ for an open world game, than I would for a 10-20 hour game, no matter how that game's story might be.

[Rhom]

15 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

While I may agree on which type of game I like to play more, I would be more willing to pay $60+ for an open world game, than I would for a 10-20 hour game, no matter how that game's story might be.

A lot of that depends on gameplay too though.  Fez and I definitely disagree on DA:I.  I found the gameplay there to be tedious and with very little imagination.  That feeling of worthless gameplay would later be topped by Final Fantasy XV.

On the other hand, I find the gameplay in Mass Effect: Andromeda to be a lot of fun; but the story was lacking because it was so spread out.