Son of Videogames Thread

[ICE CROW]

Play some Catherine. Seriously. It's a fun game, really difficult, interesting storyline. And the company that makes it also produces the Persona series; hell, it had the same dev team as Persona 4. And Persona is awesome.

An ad for it from awhile back.

Actually i played the Catherine demo, i really enjoyed it, it was something different, it's yet another game on my to get list. i literally have a Microsoft word file so i don't forget.

I saw the Diablo 3 cinematic, so now I'm replaying Diablo (and will go on to Diablo 2 once I complete D1). Aside from it being a pain to play in 640x480 fullscreen it's still as fun as it was way back when.

Let there be clicks!

WOW busting out the old Diablo, thats big. Does it still work with Battle.Net and if it does, is there still anyone playing that you can play online with ?

[kungtotte]

I don't know about D1, but D2 is still huge on Battle.Net.

[Inigima]

Tried out Payday: The Heist last night. Only did one heist as I have things to do this morning. Pretty fun, definitely a game to play with friends. Surprisingly high production values. Can be quite hard times, and I am quite bad (though I was totally green and the two friends I was playing with have played some before). I really like that the heist felt well planned -- my team (I mean the characters, not the players) knew exactly what the plan was and how to enact it. The masks are really, really cool.

Dungeon Defenders still owns. I'm trying out the Huntress now.

[Daeric]

Daeric, you play a lot of the same games that my regular gaming crew does. You should come play with us.

I am in the BWB steam group, so if I'm online I can be found that way. The only major problem I can think of is the UK/US time difference.

[Relic]

games used to be hard because they were incredibly short. youtube speed runs of titles like ghost and goblins, teenage mutant ninja turtles, karate kid, double dragon...they take like 15 minutes to beat if you follow the patterns. nowadays you could weave a much longer experience and the difficulty went down in order to allow players to uncover most of the content. that's part of it at least, imo.

[Shryke]

Games also used to be harder because the guys making them had no concept of how to design a good experience.

You can still find this kind of design philosophy in things like fan-made Mario levels where it's basically 5 minutes of no-save millisecond precision jumping to get through.

Which kinda gets down to the real issue cause, honestly, any time I see anyone talk about how games used to be harder, they are almost always talking about the same kind of game and the same era.

Side-scroller type games with live-systems from back in the NES or maybe SNES era.

[Shryke]

Also, that IGN article is so silly. Bringing up Tomb Raider?

Tomb Raider was hard for only 2 reasons: the camera sucked and the controls sucked. That's not quality challenge.

Also, not sure about Dark Souls, but everything I ever heard about Demons(s)'s Souls's made it sound like the dumb kind of hard.

People were like "It's so great cause it's hard!"

And I'd be like "Why is it hard?"

And they'd say "Because of X, Y and Z!"

And I'd say "Oh, so it's hard the way EQ or any other old MMO was hard. As in, dick-punchingly stupid design."

I mean, maybe I'm missing something, but whenever anyone talked up that game "When you die, you respawn at like half-health, lose all stuff and then have to kill their way back through the entire, respawned level" seemed the main point of why it was hard. Which ... yeah.

[Slurktan]

Also, not sure about Dark Souls, but everything I ever heard about Demons(s)'s Souls's made it sound like the dumb kind of hard.

People were like "It's so great cause it's hard!"

And I'd be like "Why is it hard?"

And they'd say "Because of X, Y and Z!"

And I'd say "Oh, so it's hard the way EQ or any other old MMO was hard. As in, dick-punchingly stupid design."

I mean, maybe I'm missing something, but whenever anyone talked up that game "When you die, you respawn at like half-health, lose all stuff and then have to kill their way back through the entire, respawned level" seemed the main point of why it was hard. Which ... yeah.

You are very obviously missing something. I'd try actually playing it before commenting on it's difficulty either way.

[Shryke]

You are very obviously missing something. I'd try actually playing it before commenting on it's difficulty either way.

What am I missing then?

[Kosciuszko]

What am I missing then?

Dying wasn't punishing for one. Your soul form had several advantages as well as disadvantages and some character builds actually preferred it over your living form. And the souls lost upon death are almost always pretty negligible and extremely easy to get back.

[ICE CROW]

Which kinda gets down to the real issue cause, honestly, any time I see anyone talk about how games used to be harder, they are almost always talking about the same kind of game and the same era.

Side-scroller type games with live-systems from back in the NES or maybe SNES era.

In alot of cases, the majority of talk is about those old NES games. That is true, but you can look at the Call of Duty series. In the older games, when you got hurt, you stayed hurt. You had to find med packs to survive, and had to think more about how you were gonna survive through an area. Whereas now, your health auto regenerates. So no matter what, all you have to do is hide for 5 seconds and your back to full health. With this new aspect, whereas i remember playing the first Call of Duty and it taking a good solid amount of time to complete the campaign, with this new health regeneration, superman aspect, i was able to run through Modern Warfare 2 in 3 hours and 23 minutes on the hardest level. Granted it was a shitty campaign and short to begin with, but i did that cus there was no really penalty for playing bad. So many checkpoints, unlimited respawns and health regeneration. Its just not the same.

The Call of Duty franchise, isn't the only one obviously to use this system now. As with anything though, games and how they function cater to different audiences. Some like games games like the difficulty their getting, some don't. It's all about preference. To call something "dumb kind of hard", is like me saying "preschool type of easy".

The point of showing that article, was just to show it. And it is a fact in general, that game mechanics have changed towards making it easier in genera,l for a player to complete the game.

[Shryke]

In alot of cases, the majority of talk is about those old NES games. That is true, but you can look at the Call of Duty series. In the older games, when you got hurt, you stayed hurt. You had to find med packs to survive, and had to think more about how you were gonna survive through an area. Whereas now, your health auto regenerates. So no matter what, all you have to do is hide for 5 seconds and your back to full health. With this new aspect, whereas i remember playing the first Call of Duty and it taking a good solid amount of time to complete the campaign, with this new health regeneration, superman aspect, i was able to run through Modern Warfare 2 in 3 hours and 23 minutes on the hardest level. Granted it was a shitty campaign and short to begin with, but i did that cus there was no really penalty for playing bad. So many checkpoints, unlimited respawns and health regeneration. Its just not the same.

The Call of Duty franchise, isn't the only one obviously to use this system now. As with anything though, games and how they function cater to different audiences. Some like games games like the difficulty their getting, some don't. It's all about preference.

Yeah, instead in older games you had health packs every 20 feet. And you could take 50 thousand shots to the face before you dropped.

The Halo-style health system (and it was Halo that popularized it) encourages a different style of play. You can't take as much sustained fire, but you can get back into the fight quickly by huddling in safety for awhile. This does not necessarily make the game easier though, since sometimes you can't find cover or need to push ahead quickly.

It's not any easier, it's just different. You tried playing Doom 2 or Half-Life lately? Just because you need health packs to regenerate doesn't make it harder.

[ICE CROW]

Yeah, instead in older games you had health packs every 20 feet. And you could take 50 thousand shots to the face before you dropped.

The Halo-style health system (and it was Halo that popularized it) encourages a different style of play. You can't take as much sustained fire, but you can get back into the fight quickly by huddling in safety for awhile. This does not necessarily make the game easier though, since sometimes you can't find cover or need to push ahead quickly.

It's not any easier, it's just different. You tried playing Doom 2 or Half-Life lately? Just because you need health packs to regenerate doesn't make it harder.

Some games are exceptions, where they find a nice balance. Its not a blanket statement, where every game made period is easy. Its a statement on the mechanics of most games, not every single one. Take puzzle solving mechanics of a game like ICO or the original Sands of time, you were forced to really figure out, what it was you had to do. I use Uncharted 2 cus its the most recent game, ive played with similar puzzles mechanics. after less than a minute its giving you hints and leading you by the hand to what you need to do next. Some may like that feature, some don't. I really enjoy the satisfaction, of figuring out exactly what i need to do next on my own.

I don't really agree with the Halo statement, on normal i feel that mechanic has made the game easier. And since normal is what the majority of people play, thats what im talking about. I will admit Halo on Legendary, is fun as hell.

[Shryke]

Normal isn't what most people play. Not most people who have been around awhile.

"Normal" these days means "Casual". Shit, in half the games out there, Normal is now the easiest difficulty level.

Normal became the mode for people who were newbies to games and thus the game is difficult enough to present a challenge to the unskilled, but not so difficult they can't beat the game.

If you are any good and you aren't cranking the difficulty to max or almost to max right when you start the game, you are doing it wrong.

Puzzles are hit and miss and always have been. They have hints in the game cause otherwise people will just load up a website and get the full solution. At least hints can give you subtle pushes towards the solution without ruining it.

I mean, the thing is sometimes I don't want to waste 30 minutes trying to solve some puzzle that I am just not getting. Especially not in a game that's not strictly a puzzle game.

[haLobEnder]

Somewhat impulsely bought the Infamous 2 PS3 bundle yesterday as it came with Batman Arkham City and Little Big Planet 2 at no additional cost. Even though I had thought about getting a PS3 before, I was a little hesitant as I already own a 360 and a gaming PC and adding a third gaming system just seemed a little excessive. Not sure if I regret my decision, but it is nice to be able to watch Netfix on my TV without having to pay Microsoft's additional (overpriced) subscription fee. Super nice; If it weren't for the DLC and arcade games tied to my Xbox account, I'd so be getting rid of my 360 right now.

Are there any PS3 exclusives I need to pick up? The only ones I'm currently looking for are the Yakuza games and the Uncharted series.

[Kosciuszko]

Somewhat impulsely bought the Infamous 2 PS3 bundle yesterday as it came with Batman Arkham City and Little Big Planet 2 at no additional cost. Even though I had thought about getting a PS3 before, I was a little hesitant as I already own a 360 and a gaming PC and adding a third gaming system just seemed a little excessive. Not sure if I regret my decision, but it is nice to be able to watch Netfix without having to pay Microsoft's additional (overpriced) subscription fee. Super nice; If it weren't for the DLC and arcade games tied to my Xbox account, I'd so be getting rid of my 360 right now.

Are there any PS3 exclusives I need to pick up? The only ones I'm currently looking for are the Yakuza games and the Uncharted series.

Valkyria Chronicles, Demon's Souls, and God of War stuff are the immediate games that come to mind. Check the PSN; they've recently begun a push to really compete with Xbox's stuff in that department.

[ICE CROW]

Somewhat impulsely bought the Infamous 2 PS3 bundle yesterday as it came with Batman Arkham City and Little Big Planet 2 at no additional cost. Even though I had thought about getting a PS3 before, I was a little hesitant as I already own a 360 and a gaming PC and adding a third gaming system just seemed a little excessive. Not sure if I regret my decision, but it is nice to be able to watch Netfix on my TV without having to pay Microsoft's additional (overpriced) subscription fee. Super nice; If it weren't for the DLC and arcade games tied to my Xbox account, I'd so be getting rid of my 360 right now.

Are there any PS3 exclusives I need to pick up? The only ones I'm currently looking for are the Yakuza games and the Uncharted series.

i did the exact same thing several weeks ago, PS3 was on sale at Walmart for $239 and came with Uncharted 1+2 and God of War HD collection. Having a 360 and a kick ass PC i had some serious buyers remorse. It took me almost a week to relax and finally enjoy my purchase.

As far as titles, Uncharted as you have mentioned, God of War 3 and i also recommend the God of War HD collection, if you haven't played God of War 1 and 2 on the old PS2. Metal Gear Solid 4, i recommend it cus it's 20 bucks, but i haven't played through it yet.