- The Witcher is an astonishingly bad game with no redeeminggood qualities whatsoever.
- Boware's rpgs are extremely bland and unimaginative, particularly in terms of visual style.
- Command and Conquer and Star Craft games have hardly updated worth a damn since their inception, and as such, are totally redundant when compared to modern, contemporary strategy games.
- I dislike Zelda and Mario. In fact, the art styles are fucking horrible in my opinion. And this isn't because I dislike mascots and platformers; I loved the new Rayman and De Blob.
You see, that doesn't seem odd to me at all. New Vegas trumps Fallout 3 in almost every respect, the latter being especially unpolished and suffering from a poorly thought out story. The only way 3 is better than Vegas is in terms of visual impact: the initial sight of the smouldering DC ruins is far more evocative than some distant, unfamiliar buildings in the desert. Vegas is pretty, but it sure ain't as iconic.
-Mass Effect 2 & 3 both sucked compared to the original. Same goes for Dragon Age 2
-Bulletstorm was awesome
-I never finished Duke Nukem Forever cause of the freaking underwater level, but other than that, it wasn't the worst game ever. I had fun with it (of course, it helps that I like breasts).
People were saying that even before Starcraft II showed us how near we've come. It's probably the reason I usually just go back to Age of Empires III or Age of Mythology when I get the urge lol.
Most of mine have been erred already, so here is the one I don't think I saw.
More stat crunching and number crunching does not make a better RPG. Nor does it make it more hardcore. I am here to immerse myself into a fantasy game, and having to constantly crunch numbers all the time does not allow for that. If you want to do that, open a excel spreadsheet and mess around with that. I thought the system Skyrim was perfectly fine for creating unique characters, and the perk system did a far better job than any sort of stat based could of.
I feel you there, and I actually have a lot of thoughts about this franchise. Without bringing any other FPS franchise into the discussion, I simply thought Halo: Combat Evolved (whether or not it actually -was- 'evolved') was a fucking awesome game. However, I felt that the Halo franchise kinda started to suck really bad immediately after the first game.
Until I played Reach. After being mostly jaded by the craptacular Halo 2, and mediocre as hell Halo 3, I was legitimately impressed by Reach. And actually does seem like an unpopular opinion even with longtime fans of the Halo games, because I often hear them saying that Halo: Reach 'sucks'. And no, not for lore reasons. The game itself, to them, apparently just sucks.
Then again, those very same people almost immediately share their belief that Halo 2 was the best Halo, so.... yeah.
I loved the concept, but thought Bungie copped out on it. No longer playing as a superhuman cyborg tankman. I thought it was interesting playing as an ODST, a HUMAN. Highly trained, and highly experienced though he may be, but still a human.
I loved the idea of being much more vulnerable to the Covenant, and having to rely on bypassing encounters with them and scavenging for high powered weapons.... Sadly this was not the case.
You were barely more vulnerable as a human, still able to climb onto Covenant tanks and punch them into exploding, still able to rip turrets off their stands and fire them whilst holding them (And oddly moving FASTER with a turret than the Chief did in Halo 3. wtf?) And still able to flip vehicles back over. Still able to swing Gravity Hammers, which on top of all the other stupid things you should not be able to do as a regular nonsuperhuman, is even more insanely stupid.
I loved the concept, the noir feel, the story structure, the music, it all had so much potential to it. Imagine if the ODST trend caught on and we received a spinoff series revolving around playing a squad of ODST's. Maybe then we could finally have a multiplayer consisting of a squad of supremely equipped yet vulnerable ODST's against a Covenant force. No more of this even/toe-to-toe/balanced Sparatn vs Elite stuff. But ODST players progressing through a level while Covenant players attempt to stop them. Playing as Brutes, Hunters, even Jackals and Grunts.
But, no. Bungie didn't do that. Bungie didn't do much of anything with this game, actually. What a shame.
Combat Evolved was evolved for reasons including, but not limited to, the following:
1. AI. The AI was not smart even for the time, but it also displayed Bungie's capacity to think outside the box. Instead of making a conventionally 'good' AI, they just redefined 'good'. It was so dynamic you rarely find yourself playing the exact same way twice. In Halo II they tightened up the AI quite a bit. So now it was 'good' in the conventional way, but it led to what would now be called tightly scripted CoD type encounters. Fights no longer felt free-form and dynamic. You get the same thing in every situation. The Combat Evolved campaign is extremely replayable and holds up to this day. Try the same level twice. You'll have a lot of enemies in slightly different positions and they will react differently to your presence. It's a subtle change that makes a huge difference.
2. Health System. That's right, *****, Halo's regenerating health was good. Really good, in fact. Before Combat Evolved, beating the campaign on Hard required very conservative play. Now there's nothing wrong with that. But the player didn't have a lot of choice in how to engage a situation.
Halo's health and shield system brought us that choice. The ability to take some non-permanent damage freed up the player to be more aggressive. In older FPSs you would never dive into a crowd to make sure you got that last hit on that one guy. In Halo that option is available, but it has to be weighed against the risk. Because if you lose too much of your shield, you start losing permanent health. That permanent health means there are still consequences. Every hit you land on the enemy and every hit they land on you changes the nature of the situation. So the battles are interesting and again, dynamic, because you are constantly measuring the risk against the rewards of aggressive play. And just to really drive this home, Elites have the same regenerative ability you do. That's the game's way of taunting you to stop being a pansy and take a calculated risk.
Contrast this with CoD. There is one way to play; you pop up, shoot, hide, repeat. You don't have enough "shield" to use it aggressively. And does every little thing that happens, every hit you take, change the nature of the situation? Nope. You lose nothing permanent. As long as you don't die there are no stakes.
3. Cinematic Experience. No, I'm not joking. Yes, I know what that makes me sound like. But believe it or not, there was a time when videogames did a pretty poor job of mixing the music, dialogue, exposition, cutscenes, art, story, action, and gameplay together smoothly and seamlessly to complement each other the way cinema had been perfecting for almost a century. Like Seinfeld, this one is difficult for people to appreciate now that we're all acclimated to it and the wonder is gone.
4. Two Guns and the Return of the Health System. So why can the player only carry two guns? Simple, there is no choice if the player can do everything. Limiting the weapon pool forces the player to think about what he brings along and make choices that complement each other and their own style. It also creates scarcity, forcing you to experiment with different combos.
Now remember that enemies have armor/shields in addition to health. The weapons all work differently from each other, and on top of that they all have different impacts on armor compared to health. There is a lot more to think about in any 1v1 encounter than remembering which gun works best against this particular unit, as previous shooters had done.
Now contrast this with Call of Duty. The guns all work the same. You can only carry two but any two you bring will work basically the same. OK? Not a lot of room for diversity of play, measuring risk/reward, or personal flourishes, here.
I would like to do a little more and get into multiplayer, but as you can see I am already straining the limits of my sanity. And then we got Halo II. Ugh. Not a bad game by a long shot. But as a successor to Combat Evolved it was thoroughly underwhelming. Everything I hated, the crowd went wild for. Everything I liked, the crowd hated. Sure, the Elites shouldn't have spoken English outside of cutscenes. But I thought the Arbiter was a great character and foil for Masterchief. And I really liked the Covenant civil war subplot. It was a great way to expand the story and fighting with the rebellious Covenant was badass. I was disappointed they didn't do more with this in Halo III (which was at least better than 2). Oh yea, and fuck dual-wielding for fucking up the formula. Finally, every ending, even a cliffhanger, must resolve the tension in the story. Duh.
I don't have much to add to your analysis of ODST because basically I'm in agreement. Despite all that, I thought it did a better job of differentiating the soldier from the Spartan, if in no other way than atmosphere. All the things that bothered you bothered me as well, just not as much. I agree they passed up an opportunity to make something really unique. But it's hard for me to blame them. I always feel like they are being pulled in two different directions by their desire to make a game that is good and the majority of their fans who just don't 'get it'.
I love Saints Row 1 and 2 but can't stand Saints Row 3rd
I don't feel let down by Bioware
I love Fallout: NV but can't get past Megatron in Fallout 3
I like Dragon Age II
I will buy DLC if I want to
I don't see EA as the "root of all evil"
I enjoy the sims 3, but find minecraft boring
- Skyrim is an abomination
- Morrowind still holds up perfectly today (a lot of people seem to think it was only good in its own time)
- Oblivion was almost as good as Morrowind, but for different reasons and despite the cliche culture and setting
- Super Mario Bros. on NES is incredibly boring (but deserves it's place in history, nonetheless.)
- Super Mario Bros. 2 was the best out of the 2D side-scrolling Mario games (Yes I know that it's gameplay was stolen, but I don't care. It was still fun)
- Super C and Contra III are much better than the original (but all three games are great)
- Pac-Man on Atari 2600 isn't THAT bad. I'd say it was an okay port
- Pitfall bores me to tears (Pitfall 2, which I don't have, looks much more exciting)
- Despite its flaws the Atari 5200 seems like it would be a decent upgrade over the 2600
- Fallout 3 is better than Fallout New Vegas (both are still great)
- Majora's Mask was easily the best Zelda game
- The Sonic Adventure games were some the worst video games I have ever played EVER!
- The Namco Museum games are not a waste of time and I absolutely love the explorable museum in the original collection on the Playstation 1
-Mortal Kombat 4 wasn't so bad, it was decent
- Red Faction still has serious potential for multiplayer and more companies should consider making arena style shooters with destructible environments (No, I'm not saying Red Faction was an arena shooter, I just like that genre)
- Red Faction Guerrilla was fun and I liked the multiplayer almost as much as the original
Anything Valve except Portal and TF2 is meh.
3D Zeldas except Ocarina of Time are boring (or terrible like MM).
PS Vita is actually a nice system with a fair price.
The Sims Bustin'Out is the best Sims game ever.
Resident Evil series' extra modes are always a pile of unnecessary crap.
Handhelds are more fun than home consoles.
I think this thread was designed to make me hate all of you. Let's see if I can come up with any that will grind people's gears:
- I like the Dynasty Warrior games
- I feel art direction trumps graphic quality
- 2D fighters > 3D fighters
- Super Mario Bros. 2 was the best Mario title on the NES
- I actually don't like Sepheroth in FFVII and have no idea why he is so popular
- I liked Sonic Adventure 1 & 2
- I didn't mind the Wiimote controls in Twilight Princess
- I like Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars more than Chrono Trigger
- Dragon's Dogma, and by extension Capcom, sucks ass (in Capcom's case they have been recently sucking ass)
- Legend of Grimrock and Bastion were boring as fuck
I'm sure there are more I can't think of right now.
1. Call of Duty games are fun
2. Dynasty Warriors games aren't just minor updates, they're fully realised products which add something new to the franchise, and shouldn't be judged so harshly by games critics.
3. I don't mind regenerating health, and cover based shooters are fun!
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