What games are you playing/looking forward to?

[Inigima]

[quote name='Werthead' post='1751196' date='Apr 9 2009, 22.41']Normally I would give this argument a lot more credence, but the whole reason that Infinity Ward split from 2015 is that they didn't want to keep on making [i]Medal of Honour[/i] clone after [i]Medal of Honour[/i] clone and they wanted to do things a bit differently, which they did brilliantly with [i]Call of Duty 1[/i]. It seems to be a bit odd and against their founding ethos that they are just churning the same game out again and again. But I suppose idealism and working with Activision do not go hand-in-hand.[/quote]
The Activision comment is accurate, but for the record, they also didn't make CoD3.

[quote]I suspect SC2 is going to get a ton of criticism for this as well. One preview put it excellently. If we'd gotten what is now SC2 say five years ago people would have responded to it well. Eleven years on getting the exact same game BUT IN 3D (which doesn't matter because the camera viewpoint will still be the same) might not quite cut it. In fact the only sequel which successfully walked that line of being similar to the original whilst still packing in tons of innovation and originality that comes to mind is Half-Life 2 (maybe BG2, actually). Maybe SC2 will hit that note as well (and oddly I'm getting the vibe Diablo 3 might do that as well).[/quote]
Dude, your persistent jerking off of Half-Life 2 is getting a little absurd. :P

[quote][i]BioShock[/i] had amazing art direction and some decent action set-pieces. But it was just [i]System Shock 2[/i]-meets-Ayn-Rand-BUT-UNDERWATER.[/quote]
This isn't true, I don't know why you're willfully overlooking major portions of Bioshock. There are a lot of similarities, sure -- and isn't that what you System Shock 2 people wanted? Lord knows you people kept bitching about not getting a sequel -- but there are lots of new elements, like the Little Sisters/ADAM, Big Daddies, Plasmids, U-Invent, setting, cast of characters, and so on.

EDIT: The IT'S SYSTEM SHOCK 2 ALL OVER AGAIN argument is what's making me angriest, I'm finding. It was heralded as a spiritual sequel to System Shock 2 from the beginning. Did the game have to blow you to make it okay in your book? What [i]would[/i] have made you happy with it?

[G'Kar]

[quote name='Werthead' post='1751196' date='Apr 9 2009, 22.41'][i]BioShock[/i] had amazing art direction and some decent action set-pieces. But it was just [i]System Shock 2[/i]-meets-Ayn-Rand-BUT-UNDERWATER.[/quote]

1. System Shock 2 was a great game, but purely from a combat perspective, Bioshock far exceeds it. Its not as good comabt wise as a CoD4, but it has its own style. Plus the option of using Plasmids strategically adds a whole level to the game.

2. You're pretty dismissive of a complex narrative, intriguing characters (Andrew Ryan, Sandor Cohen), some truly creepy elements, cool plasmid abilities, Little Sisters ect...Its far more unique and original than you make it out to be.

[Werthead]

Btw, did you play GRAW on console or PC? Because that would explain a lot. I don't think the console version even has the proper command-and-control system for your troops that the PC version has. In GRAW telling your troops to cover you when you move, or you telling you troops to do something whilst you cover them, is absolutely essential and the console control method of doing that is by all accounts a bit shit.

[quote]Dude, your persistent jerking off of Half-Life 2 is getting a little absurd[/quote]

Hey, it's sold shitloads more copies than CoD4 which [i]canonically[/i] makes it a better game. Your rules. Y'know, aside from being the single most critically lauded game of the last decade as well ;)

[quote]It was heralded as a spiritual sequel to System Shock 2 from the beginning. Did the game have to blow you to make it okay in your book? What [i]would[/i] have made you happy with it?[/quote]

Yeah, it was heralded as being derivative and unoriginal from the start, so obviously that means it being derivative and unoriginal is a good thing.

What would have I been happy with? I dunno, characters you can interact with other than to kill them or be talked at by them from behind bulletproof glass? A story that didn't recycle all the best bits from [i]Planescape Torment[/i], only doing it less intelligently? A game that tried to be its own thing rather than a remake of some game I already played a decade earlier?

[i]Bioshock[/i] was okay. It had a creepy atmosphere, the Little Sister thing was a bit fucked up and disturbing, and it had good voice acting. It just wasn't this amazing herald of innovation and originality it was made out to be. It still came down to you shooting people in the face. A lot. And fighting some lame-ass final boss who was less challenging than half the normal bad guys you fight in the game.

The electric bolt-crossbow was fucking awesome though. Maybe I'm being too harsh on it.

Seriously, are people actually happy with the complete and total lack of innovation at all in today's games? Fuck it, with the return of the "Bad guys mysteriously appear behind you in dead-end corridors and rooms you've already cleared out," feature that would have automatically gotten you laughed out of programming school five years ago (and both [i]BioShock[/i] and CoD4 do this) we're now actually going backwards.

[quote]I've had a lot of things ruined by hype.[/quote]

True, but I loved [i]Portal[/i] far more than I thought possible given the hype it generated, and I thought [i]Fallout 3 [/i]was an excellent game as well despite the avalanche of "OMG! 95%" reviews that preceded it.

[Inigima]

[quote name='Werthead' post='1751215' date='Apr 9 2009, 23.10']Btw, did you play GRAW on console or PC? Because that would explain a lot. I don't think the console version even has the proper command-and-control system for your troops that the PC version has. In GRAW telling your troops to cover you when you move, or you telling you troops to do something whilst you cover them, is absolutely essential and the console control method of doing that is by all accounts a bit shit.[/quote]
Ah, yeah, it was the console version. I can believe that the PC version was better.

[quote]Yeah, it was heralded as being derivative and unoriginal from the start, so obviously that means it being derivative and unoriginal is a good thing.[/quote]
Horseshit, it was not expected to be unoriginal. It was widely anticipated and most people were happy with the product. Its Metacritic score is 96, same as Half-Life 2's.

[quote]What would have I been happy with? I dunno, characters you can interact with other than to kill them or be talked at by them from behind bulletproof glass? A story that didn't recycle all the best bits from [i]Planescape Torment[/i], only doing it less intelligently? A game that tried to be its own thing rather than a remake of some game I already played a decade earlier?[/quote]
This is exactly what I mean. You have a small stable of games from when you were younger that you loved and you compare all games to them and refuse to acknowledge that anything outside that set is any good.

[quote]Seriously, are people actually happy with the complete and total lack of innovation at all in today's games?[/quote]
WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE I USED TO HAVE WALK TO SCHOOL NAKED THROUGH THE SNOW AND UPHILL RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE You're never fucking happy, man.

I know it's the cool thing to nerd rage about modern gaming but there have been some seriously great advances in recent years. You want to talk lack of innovation and poor design, let's talk about Half-Life 2's level design. A lot of Half-Life 2 is cool... the first time. But the levels have 10 minutes of cool stretched out to 90 through liberal use of the copy/paste method. And what did Half-LIfe 2 bring to the table over Half-Life in terms of innovation? The gravity gun? I'll stick with the games that actually innovate, like Mirror's Edge, Braid, Crayon Physics, the entirety of the DS and the Wii, and Fallout 3. I'm guessing you'll shit on that last one for being such a radical departure from the first two Fallout games while simultaneously continuing to bemoan the lack of innovation in gaming today.

[Werthead]

[quote]This is exactly what I mean. You have a small stable of games from when you were younger that you loved and you compare all games to them and refuse to acknowledge that anything outside that set is any good.

WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE I USED TO HAVE WALK TO SCHOOL NAKED THROUGH THE SNOW AND UPHILL RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE You're never fucking happy, man.[/quote]

:lol:

Games have to work harder to impress me than books or DVDs as they cost so much more. If a game lasts any less than about eight hours minimum it better be fucking unbelievably brilliant in the gameplay stakes to make up for that ([i]Portal [/i]and [i]Max Payne [/i]1 + 2 fall into that category and pretty much nothing else). For that reason I'm a lot harsher on games than anything else. There are plenty of recent-ish released games I'm a big fan of, including [i]Fallout 3[/i], [i]Jade Empire[/i], the recent [i]Total War[/i]s, [i]Company of Heroes[/i], [i]Portal[/i], [i]C&C3[/i], [i]The Witcher[/i], [i]Psychonauts[/i], [i]Left 4 Dead[/i], [i]FEAR[/i], [i]Far Cry[/i], [i]Prey[/i] and [i]World in Conflict[/i] (plus [i]STALKER[/i], [i]Mass Effect[/i], [i]Crysis[/i] and [i]Oblivion [/i]were all pretty good if flawed), to name just a few, so I'm not sure where this annoyance comes from.

Although that said, there is probably a reason why I find Yahtzee such a good reviewer.

I also wouldn't mind so much if I'd said CoD4 and [i]BioShock[/i] were unplayably shit, but I finished both of them, both of them held my attention and both of them did what they did okay. I just dispute that these games were in any way, shape or form genre-redefining masterworks which given how much people have gone on about them is what you'd be expecting.

[quote]Fallout 3. I'm guessing you'll shit on that last one for being such a radical departure from the first two Fallout games while simultaneously continuing to bemoan the lack of innovation in gaming today.[/quote]

I liked [i]Fallout 3 [/i]a great deal. I said so in this very thread about five replies ago. Reading comprehension FTW. I have, famously in the game threads anyway, never played [i]Fallout [/i]1 and 2 (although I bought them last week, so assuming they work fine with XP, that will be remedied shortly).

[Inigima]

:lol: I stand corrected. Anyway, I really do think CoD4 is a brilliantly-made, albeit not groundbreaking, online FPS. That was my position when I picked it as Game of the Year as well -- it doesn't do anything [i]new[/i], but it does everything so [i]well[/i]. I felt the same way about Skies of Arcadia.

I also played CoD4 on the console as I dislike the nature of online PC FPSes. I wonder if that difference changes our opinions as well.

Did you buy Fallout 1 and 2 from gog.com? I know their versions are tweaked to run properly in XP and Vista.

[haLobEnder]

Don't know much about online but I'm no way impressed with CoD4's split screen multiplayer mode. Seriously, why do so many games neglect to put 'bots' in the options? Half the time I can't even find the other players in death match mode :P

I'm also not too keen on Left4Dead. Co-Op's supposed to be the strong suit of the game but even when I was playing multiplayer I was getting pretty bored. Looking to trade the game off quickly while it still has some value...

[Inigima]

[quote name='hALo BEndeR' post='1752500' date='Apr 11 2009, 20.39']Don't know much about online but I'm no way impressed with CoD4's split screen multiplayer mode. Seriously, why do so many games neglect to put 'bots' in the options? Half the time I can't even find the other players in death match mode :P

I'm also not too keen on Left4Dead. Co-Op's supposed to be the strong suit of the game but even when I was playing multiplayer I was getting pretty bored. Looking to trade the game off quickly while it still has some value...[/quote]
COD4's offline multi is pointless. Play it online or it's not worth it.

Left 4 Dead is fun but there isn't nearly enough content to justify the price tag. It's also something you want to play with friends, not randoms, and not alone. And you only want to play one movie in one sitting.

[Anatole Kuragin]

Still uh.. just playing RB2..

Saw Ini online a minute ago, that was pretty cool.

[Mazrick]

I just bought Fallout 3, I've played for about five hours straight now.

Damn I don't know which game is more addicting, this or Oblivion.

[haLobEnder]

[quote name='Inigima' post='1752555' date='Apr 11 2009, 22.25']Left 4 Dead is fun but there isn't nearly enough content to justify the price tag. It's also something you want to play with friends, not randoms, and not alone. And you only want to play one movie in one sitting.[/quote]

I was playing with a friend after we discovered how sucky CoD4 split-screen was. It didn't really help matters.
I guess I'm just the type who likes story in my shooters no matter how dumb that story may be. Lrft 4 Dead didn't give me a reason to want to keep on going shooting the exact same variations of zombies over and over again. We gave up before the 'movie' ended.
So far, the only people who've been able to make split-screen multiplayer on the 360 fun for me have been Epic... other companies should take from their example.

That's not to say I haven't been enjoying gaming lately. I've been playing some Steambot Chronicles for the PS2 and some Beautiful Katamari for the 360, both of which are really fun.