What is the last video game you played?

[Quintus 5,399]

Yeah, that whole "equality for androids!" narrative of the story is too glibly handled for me to take it too seriously. I feel it's a subtext that I've heard countless times and well David Cage just doesn't have the writing chops to add anything new to it provide a different angle. It's pretty melodramatic stuff.

 

I just like the two girls on the run storyline, the "older" android becoming a surrogate mother for the helpless child in her care. That to me is the most compelling vignette in the game.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

I thoroughly enjoyed Detroit, but Cage overwrites it in the end. I’ve been meaning to go back and play it a different way, as I wasn’t happy with how my stories turned out.

 

If you’re strictly a walking simulator type of gamer, I’d recommend: Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture, Oxenfree, Life Is Strange, Tacoma, and Machinarium. 

[Holko 9,529]

Maybe What Remains of Edith Finch for a quickie. It's gorgeous and interesting, if not very substantial.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Ah that’s a great one. I love Giant Sparrow. 

[King Mark 3,631]

Detroit Become Human is free on PS+ this month

 

ok I'm done with Valkyria Chronicles 4. I watched the few post game extra scenes but don't feel like replaying missions on harder difficulty.

I beat the final big tank with A ranking using a Grenadier. Simplifies the whole thing a lot

[Jay 37,371]

12 hours ago, Quintus said:

Detroit: Become Human is currently free with PlayStation Plus and is probably right up your street.

 

2 minutes ago, King Mark said:

Detroit Become Human is free on PS+ this month

 

Hmmm

[Disco Stu 15,495]

13 minutes ago, Jay said:

 

 

Hmmm

 

JWFan: Become Cremers

[Quintus 5,399]

17 minutes ago, Jay said:

 

 

Hmmm

?

[Jay 37,371]

What are you confused about, Lee?

[Koray Savas 2,251]

It’s spreading!

[Nick Parker 3,040]

28 minutes ago, King Mark said:

ok I'm done with Valkyria Chronicles 4. I watched the few post game extra scenes but don't feel like replaying missions on harder difficulty.

I beat the final big tank with A ranking using a Grenadier. Simplifies the whole thing a lot

 

Did you get the true ending? Or do you mean you watched the scenes on YouTube? Also, you unlock other side mission things that are more strictly for the challenge...some of 'em get pretty rough!

 

Apologies to Marian, but Heavy Rain was the game where I decided I couldn't take David Cage seriously. It's hard for me to see the acclaim he gets. 

[Oomoog the Ecstatic 314]

1 hour ago, Jay said:

 

 

Hmmm

 

 

[Quintus 5,399]

54 minutes ago, Jay said:

What are you confused about,Lee?

 

Never mind, I hadn't noticed KM's comment.

[Oomoog the Ecstatic 314]

2 hours ago, Nick Parker said:

Apologies to Marian, but Heavy Rain was the game where I decided I couldn't take David Cage seriously. It's hard for me to see the acclaim he gets. 

 

I saw people bashing Cage/Heavy Rain but I didn't comprehend, what was the issue with the game/story (for example)? Didn't notice but people were talking of logical flaws.

 

Maybe he was a unique risk-taker in how he approached storytelling and it depends on what kind of story focus you like? I totally adored the game and atmosphere down to every detail: the depth and mystery noir, the multiple choices and area exploration. It was all so sensational compared to anything I've played. I think I mostly enjoyed the atmospheric exploration (where finding puzzle-pieces / investigative data creates the atmosphere of the world itself.)

[Disco Stu 15,495]

How much I like a game is often inversely proportional to how much of it I "watch" versus play.

[Oomoog the Ecstatic 314]

I tried playing a lot of movies but ended up having to watch them instead.

[Quintus 5,399]

Cage's genre is tenuously video "gamey" as it is, and often I feel removed from my immersion in the game world by his on-screen button gymnastics, I don't like it at all. And yet other times, certain interactive scenes in his games can be utterly heart pounding and gripping, to the point that I feel anxiety at levels unparalleled in gaming (and even movies). But there's an almost constant disconnect throughout the overarching experience. I find it fascinating and mundane in equal measure really.

[Oomoog the Ecstatic 314]

So what would you recommend to fix that? Quick Cage death? or is there a work-around.

[Quintus 5,399]

What do you mean? Sorry, maybe you're taking the piss but I'm misreading you. It's possible on the internet!

[Nick Parker 3,040]

39 minutes ago, Quintus said:

Cage's genre is tenuously video "gamey" as it is, and often I feel removed from my immersion in the game world by his on-screen button gymnastics, I don't like it at all.  But there's an almost constant disconnect throughout the overarching experience.

 

Same. For example, in Heavy Rain, he tries to create this bleak, noir atmosphere, which for me completely falls apart when you have a "loseable" interaction to determine whether or not your character casually opens up a goddamn car door. In his attempt to be so "immersive" by making practically everything interactive, he accomplishes the opposite. It's like this in video game form.

 

 

 

In spite of all the flights of fancy they took, Shenmue--especially its sequel--struck a balance that was far more engaging for me. 

 

And plus, Cage really ain't that hot of a writer, is he? He'll come up with cool scenarios and all that, and events that in the moment are compelling to watch, but at the end of every time (primarily Heavy Rain and Beyond Two Souls, I didn't play Detroit or get all the way through Indigo Prophecy), it comes down to "Man, if only someone else did that". 

 

And the tone always comes off as so self-serious, even in the lighter moments it has this faux-artsy air of insincerity (Birdman?)--all it does is make Cage look like he thinks he's a genius or something. Really I feel like I'm reading one of my friend's fiancee's generic romance/thriller pulp.

[Oomoog the Ecstatic 314]

Hmm..can't really criticize a game as a whole for providing our industry an immense change and uniqueness such as modern story-investigation. We could've had just another Action RPG with cutscenes, I criticize every other game for repeating the 'shallow combat simulator' formula before I criticize anything Cage has done. It seems that every artist has flaws, for sure, I often quote my favorite director Lynch for having many flaws, but he makes up for it by being himself, something unique and interesting for a change.

 

And Cage is just a beginner to this genre, a founder. His formula for vast multiple-path experience could be being greatly improved on if people showed care toward the unique niche. Make one combat game, then move on! Don't make like thousands of combat games, when we can have so much more in the industry. As a whole, I don't really understand harsh criticism for off-genre successes, I love to see diversity and new ideas always evolving. But it's overall a problem with the average gamer's mentality: when things aren't done "the right way" according to them, that usually just means something is a novel game-design experiment that's further being explored and tested. People don't like that, they want to be assured they'll have a similar experience as the last one, zombie and gun in-hand. What can I say of the film and music industries?

 

Regardless of this specific game, I'm convinced, the next gov't society somehow needs strict diversity laws put in place, because I think it's directly tied to education. I'm a bit tired of the same McDonalds movies, music and games, the media standards today are doing nothing but shrinking our brains, one year at a time.

 

Maybe much harsher copyright laws? ie. "Sorry, what you're creating is somewhat similar to what's been done. If people like what you did before, then it's there. If you want to improve on what you made before, you can add improvements to something new. Thank you for following the law."

 

Sophisticated utopian societies . A society that puts expansion at the forefront of its constitution, not monopoly. The flawed theorist and the great theorist have one thing in common: progressive thinking. It requires cause-and-effect thinking: if producers could no longer figure out how to make something new in their field, think how that opens the door for better creators to come in and take their pay, creating more equal opportunities for underrated artists.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Cage is a fine writer, he’s just incredibly cliché in his admiration of American cinema. There’s a disconnect between what he’s clearly trying to achieve and what the final product is. In Heavy Rain, that boils down to the voice acting and stifled dialogue. Honestly, I think he broke through that with Detroit. I thought the voice acting and motion capture was phenomenal there, with an impressive amount of story branches and player choice. As for the gameplay, you either like it or you don’t. I was perfectly engrossed in all of his games. Beyond just had a bad story, made worse by its non-linear design. 

[King Mark 3,631]

10 hours ago, Nick Parker said:

 

Did you get the true ending? Or do you mean you watched the scenes on YouTube? Also, you unlock other side mission things that are more strictly for the challenge...some of 'em get

 

I watched the true ending on you tube as I saw no point in redoing that last mission on harder difficulty. 

 

After that 3 hour final battle I had enough of the game.

 

I'm buying Outward on sale on PSN.

 

 

[Oomoog the Ecstatic 314]

A lot of the gameplay/things you need to do in Detroit were a lot more superficial compared to Heavy Rain. Heavy's actions/explorations unfolded really well into a meaningful story progression every moment I thought, where as the former was more like filler background exploration. Imo the directing of Heavy was much better. I myself don't really see the voice-acting complaint, similar to fps, it's more of a superficial technological facet. Subjectively however, I highly prefer the atmosphere, and characters, of Heavy, the gripping mystery of all the suspenseful areas and moments, portraying the world in a new 'detective spiritualism' lens and bringing a lot to immersion; it was very immersive. Compared to most games where what you need to do is just predictable: go here, kill these things, equip weapon, watch cutscene--that's not my definition of immersion in any sense. But it's to have something you're actually engaging your mind and imagination in, solving/exploring something real.

 

I think there are much better games, various point and clicks, but for an experimental noir/murder adventure there's not too many flaws to harp on because most games have way more flaws: As I pointed out, do mundane repetitive stuff like kill and run around, the biggest most-overlooked flaw there is, because when a game finally does something different for a change, its flaws automatically contrast with the industry flaw we accept, and we're quick to attack the new stuff. However it's the repetitive gaming today that's creating all these lesser problems for inventive games that are actually trying to test, evolve and progress the niche into something more workable. Unfortunately right now, it seems with the better off-genres there are just as many backsteps as there have been forward steps, and it's all due to the way govt and capitalism are set up.

[Quintus 5,399]

On 7/26/2019 at 6:49 AM, King Mark said:

 

I watched the true ending on you tube as I saw no point in redoing that last mission on harder difficulty. 

 

After that 3 hour final battle I had enough of the game.

 

I'm buying Outward on sale on PSN.

 

 

 

Never heard of it till now, although I suppose it's unsurprising that a game made by a tiny dev team came with practically no marketing. It looks interesting, although I read on Steam that there's a lot of running involved, endless running in order to get anywhere and it gets boring because of it. In the videos and screenshots I only see open world environments; are there no dungeons in this game?

[Oomoog the Ecstatic 314]

[Koray Savas 2,251]

2 hours ago, Borodin said:

A lot of the gameplay/things you need to do in Detroit were a lot more superficial compared to Heavy Rain. Heavy's actions/explorations unfolded really well into a meaningful story progression every moment I thought, where as the former was more like filler background exploration. Imo the directing of Heavy was so much better. I myself don't really see the voice-acting complaint, like fps that's more of a superficial technological facet. Subjectively however, I highly prefer the atmosphere, and characters, of Heavy, the gripping mystery of all the suspenseful areas and moments, portraying the world in a new 'detective spiritualism' lens and bringing a lot to immersion; it was very immersive. Compared to most games where what you need to do is just predictable: go here, kill these things, equip weapon, watch cutscene--that's not my definition of immersive. But it's to have something you're actually engaging your mind and imagination in, solving/exploring something real.

 

I think there are much better games, various point and clicks, but for an experimental noir/murder adventure there's not too many flaws to harp on because most games have way more flaws: As I pointed out, do mundane repetitive stuff like kill and run around, the biggest most-overlooked flaw there is, because when a game finally does something different for a change, its flaws automatically contrast with the industry flaw we accept, and we're quick to attack the new stuff. However it's the repetitive gaming today that's creating all these lesser problems for inventive games that are actually trying to test, evolve and progress the niche into something more workable. Unfortunately right now, it seems with the better off-genres there are just as many backsteps as there have been forward steps, and it's all due to the way govt and capitalism are set up.

Sorry but I completely disagree with your viewpoint. Seems you have an incredibly limited outlook on video games and therefore disregard the entire industry as mundane just because you prefer to point and click at things. The fact that you would consider fiddling around with QTE to slip in the mud or drink a glass of orange juice or to take a shower is more immersive for you than objectively better games that involve actual control of your character is baffling to me. This coming from a big Quantic Dream fan. 

[Oomoog the Ecstatic 314]

I understand your desires to "move around" everywhere, but I think you veered way off here. I personally have tiny inkling of where your response is coming from, at least based on what I wrote.

 

Your quick summary of Adventure games, insisting I prefer to point and click at things, is not only incorrect, but has very little to do with the vastness of what these games actually achieve and are focused on: Of course we'd like full control of our character, everyone likes bigger games. But that's a very limited concept of what games accomplish as a holistic experience and great world-building. It's terrible I have to explain this to someone who's so enriched in the culture of video games. Movement isn't a gameplay design, it's a mechanic that allows you to achieve the intended design, the way mechanics let you capture your thinking capacity for story and let you solve a world of interconnections. You actually have to have good gameplay first before you provide extra movement, or else you're left with the above game, a repetitive combat with very little mental or imaginative value. The average Joe doesn't understand game design theory.

 

Let me ask, why don't I have the player freedom to talk to enemies in most games and convince them we should do something else? Why don't I have intricate mental scenarios with NPCs by always exploring around figuring really cool story puzzles out? Isn't that just as much a limitation to your "immersion" as running around like an idiot slashing things? Don't mind my oversimplification, I'll tell you the answer: Superficial limitations like area, movement, or extra character dialogues, etc. (I can list many limitations) are the best way to first create a meaningful gameplay structure; you first form the 1s and the 0s of your design, focus in on your intended purpose for a game only (which is what combat games do, and exactly what Cage did,) then, if you have the funding you now expand the game with more player movement or things to do, not just for having traditional mechanical movement for the sake of traditional mechanical movement. You need the quality gameplay first before you provide movement into dead space. This idea has no bearing on whether open world games down-the-line should be focused on trite combat and killing (moving a character around with much less purpose or intelligence behind its gameplay), or if open world games should be focused in on deep story puzzles, world-building, story-solving and detective-ing, while providing full movement. Here, I'm not sure you comprehended the sheer importance and breadth of my comments, but you can reread this sentence I wrote in the last post:

 

12 hours ago, Borodin said:

It's the repetitive gaming today that's creating all these lesser problems for inventive games that are actually trying to test, evolve and progress the niche into something more workable.

 

Your stark defense of "moving around" being equal with "immersion" doesn't really impress or do much for me, but it's your opinion. Cage could have easily created an open world game with the same story-puzzle mechanics that manifest when you go into areas, if (a) he had the funding for that and (b) that was actually necessary. To me, your association of full-movement with immersion is a cop-out in understanding the essentials of good game design. If your ideal passion for real immersion tends toward "fighting monsters or shooting bad guys, running around or driving vehicles" then more power to you lol. Honestly, that's a decent means point to have in some parts of a good game. But when it comes to spending all developer time on a game that tries to achieve something deeper and more mentally engaging in the industry, it starts becoming much harder and more worthy to design such a game, and much more noble of an effort. So yes, I give Tim Schafer, as well as the original founders of adventure games, all the credit to what the industry is today--because the rest mostly just rely on abuse of technological advancement we already had, and filler, and the money they're given, as far as I'm concerned. With this technological advancement of bigger games with more mechanical capacity, the funding should be put in the hands of much better game designers who can use it, but that's not the way the world works. The common Joe buying games doesn't understand how game design actually works, that you need a great gameplay idea first before you publish just a simulator of cutscenes and polished mechanics. The latter has nothing to do with real immersion.

 

Luckily for you, gaming is just a hobby, so you can afford down-the-road to get bored of the utter crap you meaningfully think right now is "immersive." I have no problems criticizing the game industry as a whole because it's not my thing. If I want, I can play some VR or real adventure games, stuff that actually does something in one's life and teaches lessons. Here's my impression of the average gamer right now.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Yeah you’re clueless. Not worth talking about anymore. 

[Oomoog the Ecstatic 314]

Not sure you have an extent of what I'm talking about, so you might be right. Not worth it.

 

I wouldn't consider myself a gamer either, at least not anymore. Currently there are much more interesting things to do in life than be part of an industry so cyclical and predictable, but there will always be games I shan't forget.

[King Mark 3,631]

18 hours ago, Quintus said:

 

Never heard of it till now, although I suppose it's unsurprising that a game made by a tiny dev team came with practically no marketing. It looks interesting, although I read on Steam that there's a lot of running involved, endless running in order to get anywhere and it gets boring because of it. In the videos and screenshots I only see open world environments; are there no dungeons in this game?

 I read there was "long, winding " dungeons

[Quintus 5,399]

I traded in Destiny 2, The Division, SW Battlefront (they gave me £1.60 store credit a piece!) and CoD WW2 (£4) and swapped them for Red Dead Redemption 2, which effectively cost me £6. Deal!

 

Spent the whole of last night just configuring the damn thing, because Rockstar games always require a big introductory tweaking session before getting going with the actual campaign, hence the comprehensive buffet of sliders and toggles in their settings menus. But I think I'm now all set.

 

Got up to the first proper town, after the refreshingly not overly long snow blizzard intro, and my initial reactions are in: oh my god.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

I need to get back to that one eventually but I have a really hard time with it. For whatever reason contemporary Rockstar doesn’t do it for me. I can’t play their games for more than an hour at a time. 

[Quintus 5,399]

It's a one of those worlds and gameplay loops that I call the therapy genre. You can basically while away the hours just exploring and farming, enjoyably doing sod all. Borderlands and No Man's Sky scratch the same itch for me.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Bethesda RPGs for me. I’ve been playing the first Borderlands for the past few weeks. Trying to get through them all before 3 drops later this year. 

[Quintus 5,399]

I finished B2 last week. I was going to do all the expansions but I need a break from it now, there's no way I could segue straight into B3 after all that, as great as it looks.

[Wojo 2,453]

I've gotten my wife addicted to Skyrim on the Switch. She's a dozen levels past my character, plus her female Imperial already has a spouse and child. Seven years later, it's still escapist fun. Almost makes me forget about my gaming PC and laptop. 

[Koray Savas 2,251]

I played through Skyrim twice. On PS4 I went deeper than I did on PS3. I was trying to hit max level legitimately. I think I petered out in the 70s. 

[Quintus 5,399]

The immersion debate rages on:

 

 

😂😂😂

[Nick Parker 3,040]

EDIT: I was very tired when I wrote the original post.

[Quintus 5,399]

Pity I missed it!

[Nick Parker 3,040]

Not really.

[Jay 37,371]

Rockstar North, the Edinburgh-based developer of Grand Theft Auto, has paid no corporation tax over the past 10 years, despite making billions in revenue for its parent company Take-Two Interactive, while claiming more than £42m in tax relief.

[Holko 9,529]

Witcher 3, GOTY edition, finished, technically for the second time.

 

Every quest I came across completed, every question mark checked off the maps, all Witcher gear crafted and updated, only used fast travel after quests sent me all over an area I already explored. What a journey! The main game is still great, every quest is well-written and expands on the world and characters (no collect 10 hog tusks and 15 mushrooms bullshit - maybe the Treasure Hunts come closest, but all of those have little notes and letters that tell a story) - it's only by the 3rd act that it falls apart a bit, goes too fast and things get introduced out of the blue. Hearts of Stone is perfect - explores the titular concept in many settings across its well chosen runtime with wonderfully written characters, truly after the fashion of Sapkowski's books and concepts. Blood and Wine is a delightful standalone adventure, a sequel-epilogue episode of its own, with tooons of fun and satisfying callbacks to the books and earlier games, wrapping everything up nicely. I adore this game. Pulls me in with no effort and doesn't let go, never feels like a chore to play for a second. In the genre, only Kingdom Come: Deliverance achieved that recently. Also, what I now noticed is how... perfect and real the lighting engine is.

[Jay 37,371]

Awesome!  I look forward to playing it one day

[Holko 9,529]

For full effect I recommend reading all the books and playing the previous 2 games

 

The Witcher (Enhanced Edition) is what I feel a forgotten, or never really accepted, rough gem of a game. Nostalgia for the cheesy first half of the 2000s in the genre helps overlooking the graphics and voice acting, but a tangible atmosphere is definitely present. The combat is weird and takes a lot of getting used to. This one definitely has chore-like quests and structure, but the areas are small and overviewable, I enjoy taking up every quest and micromanaging where to go and in what order to complete them immensely. I feel out of just the games, this is the closest to Sapkowsky, picking up the first book for the first and second times felt 100% the same as experiencing this one.

 

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings (Enhanced Edition) is a mixed bag to me. I personally think it looks really ugly with the overdone bloom and oversharpened textures, the controls try to be modern but it feels awkward, the menus and map are beyond irritating to navigate and wrap your head around, it offers two very distinctly separate storylines to choose from but one is way better than the other according to pretty much everyone who tried both, and the first act, which is the first half of the game, is a bitch to get through. I almost gave up on it by the very end, took it up 2 weeks later, got bored/confused/infuriated by the stupid controls and menus again... then suddenly I got into Act 2 and it magically became instantly fun and engaging. It's relatively short, which helps having to suffer through it - I feel it's very important setup to the political situation in 3 if you care about the world. Set it to easy and run through - Chicken Man is not worth being a completionist for. I never even used traps or bombs or any of that, since I always forgot they existed, were cumbersome to use and were never properly introduced or explained. 3 is where it all comes together into a great big package, well presented, staged and directed, great atmosphere, lots of mechanics you can learn and adapt gradually.

 

Now back to Hollow Knight.

[Jay 37,371]

Are the video games telling the same story as the original books, or continuing the story from where the books left off?

[Holko 9,529]

Continuing, a few years after the books finish. The main character conveniently has amnesia in the first two games to make things easier for the game-only audience. At the very least I can honestly recommend the first two books, which are collected episodic short stories, the first setting up the world, the second going deeper into the main character's psyche through his relationships with different kinds of women.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

On 7/29/2019 at 8:05 AM, Quintus said:

The immersion debate rages on:

 

 

😂😂😂

I’ve seen a couple reviews now supporting the same points... but it’s Wolfenstein. You run, gun, and blow up Nazis. It’s intentionally over-the-top and silly like the previous games. Fantastic shooter, in my opinion. Not quite Doom levels, but it’s up there. 

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

I tried playing the first Wolfenstein reboot and couldn't get into it.  So drab and boring.  Felt like a mediocre 2007 shooter.  Duke Nukem Forever is better