Video Games: You Game Like a Young Man, With Nothing Held Back. Admirable, But Mistaken.

[Inigima]

Well, it used to be this:

http://i.imgur.com/bQXgg.jpg

It's the Secret World's first raid boss, the fight with which takes place in Times Square in New York City (currently, the Manhattan Exclusion Zone). We just killed it. In the teeth.

These teeth. http://i.imgur.com/AdFZl.jpg

[Sivin]

Oh, well then well done.

[PhoenixFlame]

Not getting into the debate again, but I hate pc gaming (outside of strategy games) so its a 360 all the way for me.

I had heard that AC3 was rather disappointing, so I was already kinda leaning against it. But I have played the rest of the series so it would seem a shame to abandon it unless I was sure it wasn't good.

Ehhh...I'll fully admit AC3 has its flaws, but I still adored it. It painted an amazing look at the American Revolution, without being "fuck yeah Amurica!" in the least. Plus, it introduces one of the most awesome characters in the series...think Colonial James Bond. AC2 will always be my favorite but I really liked AC3. Connor isn't as entertaining as Ezio, but his combat moves are so deliciously brutal.

It's funny about the Paragon/Renegade Shepards. The Renegade one is much more my playstyle, but the Paragon one was a fun challenge. To me it was very much "choosing the right way, not the easy way," so neat from that angle. I felt less like Saint Shepard and more "attempting not to punch people in the face and thus being seen as saintly."

[Revan Baratheon]

What'd you guys think about the fallout franchise. It's one of those series I'm thinking of getting next year. Is it as good as Bethesda's TES? also is it more story driven or like TES is it sandbox? Let me know ur opinions on the games!

[Inigima]

Fallout 1 and 2 are such far distant cousins that nothing about them really applies at this point.

Fallout 3 was really good and basically everyone agrees.

Fallout: New Vegas was well-received generally, but a nontrivial contingent, including me, didn't like it.

No one knows where it's going from here. I personally like it much more than TES, but I also don't like TES except for Morrowind, so my opinions there won't help much. There's a main story but tons of sidequests that will really make up the bulk of your narrative. You have decent freedom of choice in many situations.

[Kosciuszko]

What'd you guys think about the fallout franchise. It's one of those series I'm thinking of getting next year. Is it as good as Bethesda's TES? also is it more story driven or like TES is it sandbox? Let me know ur opinions on the games!

Fallout 1&2 are both great games but very much 90s era CRPGs. If you like those, then you'd probably like 1&2. Nothing about them is necessary for enjoyment of 3 or New Vegas, though New Vegas does share the same setting as 1&2, whereas 3 takes place in Washington DC as opposed to the western United States.

Fallout 3 is what you'd expect from a Bethesda game. New Vegas shares the same engine and most of the mechanics.

If you like TES I'd say give the 3 and New Vegas a shot.

[Alex.]

And it can be glitchy as all fuck.

[Revan Baratheon]

And it can be glitchy as all fuck.

I had heard Las Vegas had that problem.. I'm not surprised, the gaming studio who developed it screwed up kotor 2 with glitches as well.. I'll give fallout 3 a try definitely, think ill pass on Las Vegas though.

[mjgambino]

Fallout 1 and 2 are such far distant cousins that nothing about them really applies at this point.

Fallout 3 was really good and basically everyone agrees.

Fallout: New Vegas was well-received generally, but a nontrivial contingent, including me, didn't like it.

No one knows where it's going from here. I personally like it much more than TES, but I also don't like TES except for Morrowind, so my opinions there won't help much. There's a main story but tons of sidequests that will really make up the bulk of your narrative. You have decent freedom of choice in many situations.

Fallout 3 and New Vegas were both really good, IMO. You've got to love a series where one of the perks enables canabilism as a way to restore health.

[Kosciuszko]

I had heard Las Vegas had that problem.. I'm not surprised, the gaming studio who developed it screwed up kotor 2 with glitches as well.. I'll give fallout 3 a try definitely, think ill pass on Las Vegas though.

Neither is particularly more glitchy than the other.

[Durckad]

And it can be glitchy as all fuck.

FO3 was just as glitchy IMO.

I had way more corrupted saves and crashes in that game than in NV. Actually, I think NV only crashed once or twice on me, but FO3 did it numerous times and I lost progress on at least 2 corrupted saves. NV was full of tiny, annoying bugs, but the patches seem to have fixed most of them.

[Ran]

For those pondering The Secret World, Amazon.com has the PC Download at 50% off -- just $15. Learned this as we decided to get a second copy so I can start playing.

[Fez]

What'd you guys think about the fallout franchise. It's one of those series I'm thinking of getting next year. Is it as good as Bethesda's TES? also is it more story driven or like TES is it sandbox? Let me know ur opinions on the games!

Both are very open world like TES, although New Vegas has the stronger story (and is actually surprisingly linear- for a Bethesda game- until you get to Vegas for the first time). The atmosphere's of each are very different, even though they take place at roughly the same time. FO3 is a lawless wasteland, with only a few scattered human settlements clingly to life; New Vegas is well on its way to recovery. There is a war going on, so that's in the background, and there's plenty of mutant enemies, but there's signs of civilization everywhere.

Both WERE glitchy as fuck, but have been patched up to spot by now (at least on the PC/360; dunno about the PS3, that system always seems to hate Bethesda).

ETA: I prefer New Vegas.

[haLobEnder]

Part of me wants to agree with everyone who says Journey is a beautiful, artistic, masterwork of the video game medium, part of me wants to call bullshit on all the hype and pretentious accolades that surrounds this game.

I don't think it's a bad game by any means. It's a truly unique gaming experience made by talented people who deserve major props. My issue is I'm tired of there being only one mode to combat this idea that video games aren't a valid art form and everyone praising these few examples as truly profound experiences when they're often just one trick ponies. I don't want my only two options when playing video games to be kitch or expressionist, I want the whole spectrum to be equally represented in videogames. I want the video game equivalent of a Hitchcock or Kurosawa film, not just the video game equivalent of a Michael Bay or Terrence Malick film.

Regarding the Bethesda published Fallouts: If you're saying 'no' to New Vegas, I think you're saying 'no' to the better of the two games produced under Bethesda's watch. Not only is it made by some of the people responsible for the original games, but it also has a lot more soul than your average Bethesda game, with interesting companions --not quite Bioware levels, but much better than Elder Scrolls/Fallout 3-- cool factions, and a better story.

All the big glitches at this point have been fixed.

[haLobEnder]

Trying to clear some of the games I've started but haven't finished, as I'm seriously contemplating giving up --or at least drastically cutting back on-- video game playing as a New Years resolution.

First up was Telltale's Jurassic Park game, a.k.a. Quick-Time Event: The Game.

It's funny, though it shares much in common with The Walking Dead game in terms of gameplay (or lack thereof), my experience with one was predominantly entertaining while my experience with the other was tedious and annoying with some entertaining story bits thrown in. Jurassic Park wasn't exactly hard or anything, it just lulled you into the sense that you were watching a cut scene then threw a sequence of blink-and-you'll-miss-them QTEs that usually resulted in you being eaten by dinosaurs and having to replay the scene over again if you failed.

Maybe the difference is The Walking Dead's quick time events were just more forgiving. I know there was one time in episode 4 where I completely dropped the ball on a time-sensative goal, yet instead of the scene ending in defeat, another character stepped in and met a bitter end. I'm pretty sure that character is fated to die at some point no matter what you do, but I wonder if it happened quicker in my game just because I sucked so horribly at the task I was supposed to do.

One things for certain, TWD has a far more satisfying ending.

Thinking Alice: Madness Returns or The Witcher 2 should be next on my list. I don't know why I've had such trouble getting through TW2 as RPGs are my favourite genre and it's fine game by all accounts. Alice I've been enjoying as well, it just turned out to be a much longer game than I was anticipating it would be.

[The Anti-Targ]

Part of me wants to agree with everyone who says Journey is a beautiful, artistic, masterwork of the video game medium, part of me wants to call bullshit on all the hype and pretentious accolades that surrounds this game.

I don't think it's a bad game by any means. It's a truly unique gaming experience made by talented people who deserve major props. My issue is I'm tired of there being only one mode to combat this idea that video games aren't a valid art form and everyone praising these few examples as truly profound experiences when they're often just one trick ponies. I don't want my only two options when playing video games to be kitch or expressionist, I want the whole spectrum to be equally represented in videogames. I want the video game equivalent of a Hitchcock or Kurosawa film, not just the video game equivalent of a Michael Bay or Terrence Malick film.

Regarding the Bethesda published Fallouts: If you're saying 'no' to New Vegas, I think you're saying 'no' to the better of the two games produced under Bethesda's watch. Not only is it made by some of the people responsible for the original games, but it also has a lot more soul than your average Bethesda game, with interesting companions --not quite Bioware levels, but much better than Elder Scrolls/Fallout 3-- cool factions, and a better story.

All the big glitches at this point have been fixed.

Where would you put Heavy Rain? It's neither Michael Bay nor Terrence Malick. Certainly not Hitchcock or Krusoawa. Closer to Hitchcock in style and subject matter but that's as far as it goes. I'd propose Valkyria Chronicles as a game with the sort of artistic elements that demand recognition of video games as an art form just as much as movies and it doesn't sit in the art house or Michael Bay camp.

Speaking of which, at our national museum there is a video games exhibition http://www.tepapa.go...es/Welcome.aspx This won't be a locally produced exhibition so it'll have been shown lots of other places in the world before it came here.

The exhibition is subtitled "An inside look at the art of the world's biggest entertainment and creative industry." Funny that Sonic is the character on the main panel of the page.

We also had a radio programme on our national public radio station looking at the evolution of music in video games.

So something interesting is happening with video games and the question of "is it art". It's almost like Roger Ebert did video games a favour by so vociferously denying that video games could ever be considered art.

[Francis Buck]

Having just finished BioShock for the first time (yeah I know, I'm a little late), I would definitely say that game strikes a good balance between action and a story with actual substance, without feeling pretentious or artsy-fartsy -- at least to me.

I honestly think the part where you kill Andrew Ryan, and the accompanying plot twist, is probably one of the better "scenes" in any video game I've played. It was such a different way of approaching what in many games would amount to a silly boss battle. Instead they don't even let you control the character during it, which of course makes perfect sense in context of the story. The fact that they also build up this character as being the main bad guy, only to kill him just a little over half-way through, is pretty damn clever in my opinion. The final battle with Frank Fontaine at the end actually felt a little disappointing, as it was much more run-of-the-mill and stereotypical, although the character of Fontaine himself was still pretty good. I liked that, by the end, Ryan actually seemed sympathetic compared to Fontaine.

[Merentha]

I had heard Las Vegas had that problem.. I'm not surprised, the gaming studio who developed it screwed up kotor 2 with glitches as well.. I'll give fallout 3 a try definitely, think ill pass on Las Vegas though.

Fuck. This. Bethesda was responsible for the QA on FNV, and it was less buggy than FO3 for most people. FNV is far closer the original Fallouts than 3 was, which is very similar to Oblivion with guns and a veneer of Fallout.

[Inigima]

I didn't have problems with bugs, I just didn't like the game and either it did a bad job of telling me where to go or where I'm supposed to be is poorly designed. (I'm guessing the former since plenty of people had no problem, but either way I've tried 3 or 4 times and can't get past early days.)

Bethesda being responsible for QA is not much of an indicator that there won't be problems. A primary reason I quit playing Skyrim was the never-ending cavalcade of game-breaking bugs.

[haLobEnder]

Where would you put Heavy Rain? It's neither Michael Bay nor Terrence Malick. Certainly not Hitchcock or Krusoawa. Closer to Hitchcock in style and subject matter but that's as far as it goes. I'd propose Valkyria Chronicles as a game with the sort of artistic elements that demand recognition of video games as an art form just as much as movies and it doesn't sit in the art house or Michael Bay camp.

Speaking of which, at our national museum there is a video games exhibition http://www.tepapa.go...es/Welcome.aspx This won't be a locally produced exhibition so it'll have been shown lots of other places in the world before it came here.

The exhibition is subtitled "An inside look at the art of the world's biggest entertainment and creative industry." Funny that Sonic is the character on the main panel of the page.

We also had a radio programme on our national public radio station looking at the evolution of music in video games.

So something interesting is happening with video games and the question of "is it art". It's almost like Roger Ebert did video games a favour by so vociferously denying that video games could ever be considered art.

I used Hitchcock and Kurosawa because they're examples of well crafted storytelling with universal appeal (or so I thought). Perhaps all my examples were bad -- Malick isn't exactly an apt comparison for the style of game Journey is either.

What I'm saying here though is that it feels as if we as gamers have chosen this one style of game --the art-house indie game-- as our public face -- or rather, the face we wish people would see instead of perceiving us all as obnoxious 12 year olds-- but no other medium is defined by the best of one genre (the term 'genre' being used loosely here).

These types of games really aren't as important as we make them out to be. I'm sure there are people out there who've found profound meaning in games like Braid or Journey, just as there are people who've found profound meaning in Final Fantasy games. The problem is it feels like we're championing one experience while ridiculing the other for the sake of making the medium more credible in the eyes of outsiders.

I want to see the maturation and perfection of all video game genres, just as I can watch a good horror film, a good art-house film or a good animated film. Then I think we'll have a case that video games should be taken seriously as an art form, not before.

I don't know if I'm making sense here, I feel like I may have gone off the rails a bit with my point. Suffice it to say, I liked Journey but I think the experience was vastly over-hyped.