Poll: Can you play a game wrong? [Please read before voting]

[The Wykydtron]

Maybe, i did play through the whole of the first Mass Effect just using pistols using the soldier class y'know the class that has access to all weapons? Just cuz i couldn't figure out how to switch weapons...

If that's not playing it wrong i don't know what is...

 

[Biosophilogical]

Agreed. For example, someone bringing a longsword or sword'n'shield with a useless element (like fire against a fire-breathing dragon), or going off and mining ore while you fight a lightning-spitting sea-dragon that looks like a war-scarred lapras combined with a Goanna.

That sounds really familiar. Game?

Monster Hunter (MHTri in this case. I'm an SnS man myself. Nothing like the finishing blow being a water-splashing hit to the tail-nub for a hilarious anti-climax)

 

[squid5580]

I think he is 100% correct about Vanquish. Why give you a super power suit that overheats the moment you use it. One that doesn't evolve through gameplay? You can do 1 melee attack and it overheats. Or you can slide around. But if you do anything you are penalized for it. And the assault rifle was way better than the heavy machine gun. Whoopie the heavy has more damage it doesn't compare to the power of faster rate of fire. I only broke out the heavy when I ran out of ammo for the assault. The is the biggest problem with vanquish is evolution. You get all the weapons at the start (pretty much the find all gun achievie popped 1/4 of the way through the game for me). And instead of fighting more powerful grunts or even bosses you are just expected to fight more of the same. All except 1 bossfight played out the same way. Fight boss. Fight 2 of same boss. And the rest was just lets increase the number of waves of enemies.

 

[linwolf]

Yes, you can...by losing. "Game Over" is the sign that you have dropped the ball somewhere. There is no other.

I like to play survival mode in games when the game start you know it will end in a game over and most of them gets harder and harder so even if you play perfect there is an upper limit to how long you can survive. So game over doesn't always indicate that you played the game wrong

 

[Ranorak]

encumbering yourself in oblivion with clay pots or stolen cutlery *facepalm* (have to look away when little sister is playing)

That's not playing it wrong, that's your sister roleplaying a very poor thief

 

[Tallim]

If he wasn't supposed to play the game only running around with an assault rifle, why put it in there? I understand weapon balance, but if it detracts from the experience just don't put it in there.

In this situation, yeah it sounds like Jim may not have experimented enough with the game mechanics and found the one that was right for him, or maybe he did find the best way to enjoy it for himself and he still found it lacking, but that doesn't excuse a developer demanding him replay and review the game again "the right way". People put waaaay too much weight into game reviews. Reviews are a persons opinion and not everyone is going to share yours. Get over it.

With the same logic, why would the game give you more guns if it wanted you to just use the assault rifle?

I only brought up Jim's Vanquish review because when I came across the Jimquisition video about playing a game wrong, I immediately was like, "ok, I agree with your points but you did play Vanquish wrong." I wasn't upset at the score he gave the game, but his reasons for the score. Vanquish is an action game not a cover shooter. As a professional reviewer, Jim should've known what type of game it is just from watching one of the trailers for the game; it's obvious Vanquish is an action game that just so happens to allow you to take cover. The game puts you in a suit that has all these abilities so you don't have to constantly be in cover. I wouldn't review a racing sim and say it sucks because it's a bad arcade racer and that's what I felt Jim basically did with his Vanquish review. I edited my first post saying Jim didn't play it wrong, but he reviewed it wrong. Just as long as your enjoying yourself, you're playing the game right. Maybe Jim doesn't enjoy action games like Vanquish, that's fine, but then score the game on how good a job it does a being an action game not a cover shooter.

I do think you can play online games wrong as many people have mentioned that if you are not playing the game in way to help your team win, then you are playing it wrong because you are then causing other players' enjoyment of the game to be lowered. There's a time and place to dick around and a time and place to play serious.

There seems to be this attitude lurking about that if it's possible to take cover then a game is by default a cover based shooter.

I've heard almost the exact same arguments aimed at Bulletstorm.

 

[Goomboss]

i have a step brother who plays a game very linear style even fallout, he wants to get from start to finish, he doesnt even explore, i watched him on his birthday when he got blackops, his first time playing, now i know blackops is a linear game but you do often tend to look around and check stuff out, no he never once strayed from the characters that you can follow, even on the bits where your by yourself he just follows the path, same with fallout when he first played that, when he got outside he saw new vegas lights and headed towards it, didnt even do the goodsprings storyline, when he was killed by giant radscorps and cazadors he turned it off and said too hard....it aggrivated me /argh

EDIT: he's 14

 

[MaxwellEdison]

Yeah, of course you can. A game always has a set objective, and if you don't follow it, you're doing it wrong.

Now, that doesn't mean your way isn't as fun to you, or objectively better in some cases.

 

[EHKOS]

No a game cannot be played wrong! You play it the way you want, and then you have the maximum amount of fun because it's what you want to do! And when you beat the game then it was just another path and the one most benifiting to you. Don't tell others how to play, their play style may be different than yours. I hate this question. Just beacuse you play the game one way does not mean we all have to play the way you did.

 

[Smooth Operator]

You can yes, but it has become the standard developers excuse for "we made shit, deal with it".

And honestly don't use Jim as a reference point, find someone that knows what hes on about.

 

[WiwuX]

I agree with most of the video you posted, if a game lends itself to being played "wrong", that is itself an issue with the game. Whether or not I'm playing the game in as enjoyable a way as possible is a different issue.

Apparently Other M has a decent fighting system if you don't use the game-breaking dodge+charge combo, well, then the combo shouldn't have been in there, and so on.

 

[FalloutJack]

Yes, you can...by losing. "Game Over" is the sign that you have dropped the ball somewhere. There is no other.

I like to play survival mode in games when the game start you know it will end in a game over and most of them gets harder and harder so even if you play perfect there is an upper limit to how long you can survive. So game over doesn't always indicate that you played the game wrong

Well, I was thinking more along the lines of regular gameplay, not survival mode. That hadn't entered my mind. Though...giving it some thought, since the point of survival mode is the last as long as you can, you still technically want to avoid the Game Over. Sort of works, still. In any case, you know what I mean.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Well since I'm assuming Jim finished the game playing like this, that their design was flawed, rather than he played it wrong. If gamers aren't punished to an extent 'for playing the game wrong', that it doesn't cause a game over, then that's bad design and flawed gameplay. In which case Jim is absolutely correct to call them out on it.

For example if you play Dragon Age Origins wrong on any level higher than casual, you won't get anywhere without seriously pulling your socks up. Which I admit has led to alot of people saying, mysteriously, that the game is 'too hard'

 

[Katana314]

For instance, this sarcastic remark in the TF2 forums:

"The flaregun for the pyro is utterly useless. When I find enemies, I try shooting it upwards to signal teammates, but A. Nobody notices it, B. It detonates well before it goes high into the sky! WTF, Valve? Make this weapon useful please."

 

[random_bars]

Yes, you definitely can play a game wrong. The one I always talk about is Brutal Legend, which is essentially a blend between a strategy game and a hack-and-slash. You have a base, build and direct units, and have the general goal of destroying your enemy's base before they destroy yours, but you don't just control your army from the sky like most RTS games.

Instead you play as your army's leader, and although you can fly, the idea is to involve yourself in the battle as much as possible - flying over to small groups of infantry and killing them yourself, playing your guitar solos that do all sorts of stuff at critical times, fending off the enemy avatar, and fighting alongside your army in battle using the teamup attacks which each troop has a different one of, which let you take control of them in some way to do an attack that's more powerful than either of you could do on your own.

The single player goes to great lengths to introduce this gameplay to the player bit by bit - say, there'll be a mission where you just learn the troop controls, a mission that focuses on one double team, a mission where you take a small group of troops up a mountain, killing stuff as you go along. And every so often there's a stage battle where all of these mechanics are put together to make the gameplay as a whole.

And yet an alarming number of people decided that whenever they reached a stage battle, they would completely forget everything they had learnt about the game - stopped using double teams, stopped using solos, stopped using basic combat for the most part - and decided to play by just flying in the air the whole time, directing troops and doing nothing else, playing the game like Starcraft. And then subsequently when they were repeatedly destroyed by the enemy - who of course WAS participating in the battle rather than playing Mouse Cursor Simulator - they blamed the game for sucking, said that it had "shitty out of place RTS segments" and that it would have been so much better "if it had just been a hack and slash where you actually kill stuff yourself".

Even reviewers did this. The Destructoid review makes no mention of the stage battles as anything other than "RTS sections", doesn't talk about how you can take part in the action yourself, doesn't talk about the double team attacks, doesn't talk about anything except commanding troops. He says that the battles can take upwards of an hour... The longest battle I've ever played online took about 25 minutes. It's clear that the reviewer was playing the game entirely wrong, and yet it's sad that by doing so he's potentially caused everyone who reads the review to either not play the game at all or treat the stage battles as some sort of isolated mini-game, with all the mechanics from the rest of the game removed, as opposed to the reality of them being an amalgamation of those mechanics.

This is definitely partially the fault of the game for underestimating how much teaching players would need for a new style of gameplay they've almost certainly never played before. But it's just kind of sad to see someone play the game wrong and then decide that it's the gameplay that is at fault for sucking, rather than it being their fault for sucking at the game.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

There seems to be this attitude lurking about that if it's possible to take cover then a game is by default a cover based shooter.

I've heard almost the exact same arguments aimed at Bulletstorm.

Does Bulletstorm even have a cover system? I played the demo and enjoyed it (just haven't picked up the game yet) but I thought the only way to take cover was to crouch behind it. So a game with a crouch button is now considered a cover shooter? Bulletstorm is the kind of shooter we need more of, it goes for fun rather than realism. Taking cover may be realistic but a real shootout wouldn't be much fun, not even because you could actually get shot and killed, but just because how it plays out with both parties taking cover and barely giving each other chances to shoot them.

I think he is 100% correct about Vanquish. Why give you a super power suit that overheats the moment you use it. One that doesn't evolve through gameplay? You can do 1 melee attack and it overheats. Or you can slide around. But if you do anything you are penalized for it. And the assault rifle was way better than the heavy machine gun. Whoopie the heavy has more damage it doesn't compare to the power of faster rate of fire. I only broke out the heavy when I ran out of ammo for the assault. The is the biggest problem with vanquish is evolution. You get all the weapons at the start (pretty much the find all gun achievie popped 1/4 of the way through the game for me). And instead of fighting more powerful grunts or even bosses you are just expected to fight more of the same. All except 1 bossfight played out the same way. Fight boss. Fight 2 of same boss. And the rest was just lets increase the number of waves of enemies.

There's a lot of legit complaints about Vanquish but name more than one shooter this gen that lets you stay out in the action and not get killed. I think the only shooter I can name that fits that criteria is Bulletstorm. If you are pretty decent at playing Vanquish, you'll always have suit energy when you need it; just roll a couple times and you can dodge anything while getting back energy. With the melee, I think it would be cool and allow the game to work if you could do 2 melee attacks in a row. But it does make sense and gameplay sense to have melee take all the suit energy because the melee is such a powerful attack in the game because the suit is used to deal most of the damage. If melee didn't take a good amount of energy, the game would be extremely broken and you could just melee through the whole game. I kinda understand the complaint about not getting new stuff but the game is 5-6 hours long and if you got something new with an hour left, you'd be like I wish I had that for the whole game. Not every game needs to give you new weapons and abilities over the course of the game, and I think Vanquish is one of them. There is no way the assault rifle is better than the heavy machine gun, I don't care if the assault rifle fires faster, it's still doing less damage than the heavy machine gun over the same time. Without headshots, the heavy machine gun will take out a standard enemy faster than the assault rifle. The only thing the assault rifle has over the heavy machine gun is accuracy.

i have a step brother who plays a game very linear style even fallout, he wants to get from start to finish, he doesnt even explore, i watched him on his birthday when he got blackops, his first time playing, now i know blackops is a linear game but you do often tend to look around and check stuff out, no he never once strayed from the characters that you can follow, even on the bits where your by yourself he just follows the path, same with fallout when he first played that, when he got outside he saw new vegas lights and headed towards it, didnt even do the goodsprings storyline, when he was killed by giant radscorps and cazadors he turned it off and said too hard....it aggrivated me /argh

EDIT: he's 14

Lol, kids these days. They should have to play through X amount of NES and SNES games before being allowed to play any current gen games. Fallout is not a hard game.

I...if you finished all the challenges, you are obviously a GOD who I should worship.

I should follow your advice...any hints for the last round of Challenge 4? Fucking IMPOSSIBLE, with the Romanov's armed with rockets+ the...silver dude, forgot his name :S

I haven't been able to beat wave 5 of challenge 6, those double bogeys are tough as hell. I can get through the first 4 waves pretty well. The video I posted actually makes me made to a degree because dude makes the double bogeys look like child's play.

Here's how I beat the last wave of challenge 4:

I went in with an assault rifle, shotgun (level 3), and rocket launcher (obviously). I found the LFE gun to just not be worth it because you don't need it to take out the Romanovs and the crystal viper can be shotgunned. Plus, I found the LFE didn't work that well on the crystal viper anyways. Here's my step-by-step process:

1) As the Romanov on the left spawns, shoot him with the rocket launcher.
2) Next you gotta kill those blue flyboys. Toss a stun, then a nade which you shoot in the air to kill them. If the stun fails (which it did on my one and only successful run), use the rocket launcher on one and the splash should kill the second one as well. If you execute the kill on these flyboys properly, the rest is kinda easy.
3) Now the flame thrower Romanov should be spawning or just spawned. You should have basically full energy, go into AR mode and shot his tank with your assault rifle, which should take about 75% of your energy meter.
4) Use your remaining rockets on the other 2 Romanovs. The Romanov on your left should be dead.
5) Now, slide and pick up the upgrade dropped from the flame thrower Romanov, and use the upgrade on your rocket launcher. You can now kill the final Romanov and you have a rocket or 2 left for the crystal viper.
6) Just be careful with the viper, he's pretty easy alone but the area is very narrow. Boost and dodge about in short spurts. Enter AR mode for short spurts as well and shoot him 1 or 2 times with the shotgun. Boost around, dodge, and reload. AR shotgun some more until he's dead.

Once you get to step 3, it is pretty easy. I only got to step 3 twice; the first time I killed all the Romanovs and I just made a mistake with the viper. The 2nd time I got to step 3, I beat the challenge. Step 2 is the key, you have to be super quick with killing the flyboys.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

I'll use Vanquish as an example of a game you can play wrong while using exerts from Jim's review of Vanquish to show you how he played it wrong.

Vanquish is actually a rather run-of-the-mill shooter that ... everything you do in this game makes you vulnerable, weak, and ultimately dead.

It's obvious from that exert that Jim played Vanquish as a cover shooter. The game even gives you a hint, via the scoring system, that you shouldn't be using a lot of cover as the game takes off points based on how much you used cover.

*spits his imaginary soda all over screen*

SAY WHAAAAAAAA?

Ok, yeah, he played it wrong. And there ARE hints to tell you not to be a freakin coward who sticks to cover like it's gears of war. If he wanted to play it like gears of war in space, then that's his problem for not actively exploring the full potential of Sam's suit.

Hell, I only use cover in that game when I need to recharge my suit or to analyze a situation to figure out what the most effective angle to attack from is. Then I boost out of cover, and start rolling, shotgunning/machinegunning everything in sight in slow-mo whenever possible, only rarely popping into cover to let my bar refill.

And even then, the friend who introduced me to that game feels I'm playing the game like a total pussy! (he's the risk taking, no-cover, lots of melee attacks kind of player. And his score is usually way higher than mine).

Also, someone said that younger gamers don't give games a try. I've seen this with my friend's younger stepbrother. The kid didn't want to play vanquish since it was "stupid and unrealistic". Then my friend made him try the tutorial. The kid loved all the interesting systems in the game. ...Then he tried the first level and died like a dog because we was being careless (and not having the skills to compensate for that). The kid then said "this game sucks. Why? Because it does. No, it's not too hard for me, it just !@#$ing sucks.". That annoyed me.

Oh and yes you CAN play a game wrong. But Jim is right in that the game should TELL you in game if you're not doing something right.

 

[Amondren]

I agree with him for the most part... but then their's the people who just outright don't know how to play games and get confused when you give them more then 1 control stick to use.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I'll use Vanquish as an example of a game you can play wrong while using exerts from Jim's review of Vanquish to show you how he played it wrong.

Vanquish is actually a rather run-of-the-mill shooter that ... everything you do in this game makes you vulnerable, weak, and ultimately dead.

It's obvious from that exert that Jim played Vanquish as a cover shooter. The game even gives you a hint, via the scoring system, that you shouldn't be using a lot of cover as the game takes off points based on how much you used cover.

*spits his imaginary soda all over screen*

SAY WHAAAAAAAA?

Ok, yeah, he played it wrong. And there ARE hints to tell you not to be a freakin coward who sticks to cover like it's gears of war. If he wanted to play it like gears of war in space, then that's his problem for not actively exploring the full potential of Sam's suit.

Hell, I only use cover in that game when I need to recharge my suit or to analyze a situation to figure out what the most effective angle to attack from is. Then I boost out of cover, and start rolling, shotgunning/machinegunning everything in sight in slow-mo whenever possible, only rarely popping into cover to let my bar refill.

And even then, the friend who introduced me to that game feels I'm playing the game like a total pussy! (he's the risk taking, no-cover, lots of melee attacks kind of player. And his score is usually way higher than mine).

Also, someone said that younger gamers don't give games a try. I've seen this with my friend's younger stepbrother. The kid didn't want to play vanquish since it was "stupid and unrealistic". Then my friend made him try the tutorial. The kid loved all the interesting systems in the game. ...Then he tried the first level and died like a dog because we was being careless (and not having the skills to compensate for that). The kid then said "this game sucks. Why? Because it does. No, it's not too hard for me, it just !@#$ing sucks.". That annoyed me.

Oh and yes you CAN play a game wrong. But Jim is right in that the game should TELL you in game if you're not doing something right.

Yeah, I always say that cover in Vanquish is just there to jump over in slow-mo while shooting or smoke a cigarette. But, obviously, it's also there to give you a few seconds to recharge the suit when you get in trouble. If you boost-dodge (slide for a second, roll to cancel out of the slide, and repeat), the energy you lost from sliding for a second is basically recovered during the roll so you can boost-dodge pretty much all over without losing energy.

And, there should be a prerequisite of old-school NES and SNES games for young gamers to play and beat before being allowed to play current gen games. Vanquish isn't a hard game when played on normal or easier.