Julianking93 said:
RDR was boring to me.
I gave Nier my game of the year.
So yeah, that's my pick
Hee hee, i'm so glad somebody agrees with me on both accounts! ^_^
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Okay, gushing over, my vote goes to NIER.
Unlike a lot of people, i really enjoyed it. The characters were wonderfully endearing (Nier himself and Grimoire Weiss totally stole the show) and the world itself just felt so... i don't know. Alive? It felt like a real world, rather than the hollow corridors and empty space of other typical RPG games. Looking at you, Final Fantasy 13. I remember one town, a port town, and it's actually.... you know, a town. It's big. It has shops. It has people. It feels alive. The game has so much character and personality. One town that really stuck in my head was the one where the inhabitants live by a set of rules. Hundreds of rules. It can range from something like "don't stop to talk to strangers" to "don't sell anything to anyone who hasn't danced five times and shake both their hands". It's quirky, it's original, it has personality. I loved the music (especially the 'overworld' when travelling between destinations) and i actually found the combat to be enjoyable, mixing up magic and melee and having it real time action based as opposed to pressing a command on a menu turn-based style. The main quest takes inspiration from various titles. One section could have you solving puzzles zelda-style, the next has you fighting a boss God of War style, and the next room could have you weaving between energy balls in a top-down view similar to some sort of side-scrolling shooter.
I found Red Dead Redemption to be woefully boring. The world is nothing but one big shade of khaki. It's to be expected. You are, for the most part, in the desert. There is no variation in transport. It's not like GTA where you could go from saloon to coupé to supercar. It's just horses. Nothing but horses. Or a wagon, if you use the taxi system. But at the end of the day, it's nothing but horses and that gets boring. Fast. It's a chore to traverse anywhere. I will say something in its favour, the little touches are what make the game interesting. From hunting animals, to scrounging for herbs, to playing poker, to random encounter events and side missions. That's what makes the game. The story is... well, it's alright. Not entirely my cup of tea, i'm not big on westerns. Marston felt a little bit too cookie cutter for my liking. (guy has a naughty past, guy goes to make things right. The damned-seeking-redemption story has been utterly done to death. "I'm a badass gunslinger but at the end of the day i just want to sit with my family around the fireplace".) Maybe i need the hustle and bustle that the cities of GTA provide for me to remain engaged... i don't know. All i know is that i didn't even make it to Mexico before i became rather tired with the game. A few quirky characters like the travelling salesman do not make up for the otherwise dull world in which i found myself.
But that's just me. You may agree with the others and find NIER to be sub-standard, poorly crafted, and for Read Dead Redemption to have an engaging story and exciting gameplay.
