PigLick on 20/4/2014 at 07:38
even sheep have their limits dethy.
demagogue on 21/4/2014 at 01:49
I should go on record that I wasn't a fan of the cyborg ninjas, and the moment of their appearance in the game was the end of the magic for me, as I thought it was crossing the line into unapologetic fan-service ... although thankfully it came back a bit in the body of the many. I mean they didn't kill the game for me -- they were still a respectable gameplay challenge -- they just didn't carry me like most everything else did.
The message I got from SS2, why it's important, was it's a game that's ruthlessly authentic to its world & atmosphere. Each piece was made to reinforce a mood, and except for a few things like the cyborg ninjas and egg hunt IMO, it stuck to it throughout.
Edit: Oh, and most gamers are stupid. I'm on board with that too. I don't always hold it against them, especially people are allowed to be stupid when they're young. And I think part of it is just the gaming culture encourages gamers to approach games a certain way; it's not like they're born that way IMO. The issue for me has always been whether its worth having a niche market for gaming that runs against that culture, and how such a market would work. Part of Irrational's brand was skirting the line between niche and mainstream. I'm not sure if their experiment worked in the end, and their closing may be sending that kind of message.
Tony_Tarantula on 21/4/2014 at 05:05
Quote Posted by demagogue
Edit: Oh, and most gamers are stupid. I'm on board with that too. I don't always hold it against them, especially people are allowed to be stupid when they're young. And I think part of it is just the gaming culture encourages gamers to approach games a certain way; it's not like they're born that way IMO.
To some extent, our entire CULTURE(esp. the school system) encourages robotic behavior devoid of critical thought, but that's a commchat discussion.
The other day I loaded up a few old DOSBOX games I had when I was younger due to nostalgia, and the thought occurred to me that even the freaking kid's games had less hand holding than your current-gen FPS. Even TLC games did not have button prompts telling you whenever you can interact with anything, not to mention that these old 2D games were less on-rails than most current games: you were free to explore the environment in any order you pleased to locate the items you needed to advance.
Bump things up to other 90's games I played like old Dynamix combat games, Sierra games like Battle Bugs, Maxis's Sandbox(in the true meaning of the word) sims.......I can't think of any mainstream contemporary games (except maybe Dark Souls) that can match the depth of titles like that. If you want a game that matches both their depth and their requirement for dynamic thinking and problem solving skills, I can't think of any game from the last 12 months that can match that.
Put my 13 year old in-law in front of Battle Bugs or Earthsiege and he'd be completely lost.
PigLick on 21/4/2014 at 06:21
I beg to differ actually, its how those kids are raised as well you know. My 10 year old son absolutely kicks my ass at any game, including things like Super Metroid, any of the 3d Zelda titles, hell was playing that new time travel portal2 mod and he had the solution way before I did, my eldest daughter sits there and does scripting for Rpgmaker and the like. I guess I am just an amazing parent ;)
Things were always better back in the day right? bullshit.
What the hell school system are you talking about? My daughter is studying history and law(she is 15), currently looking at the myanmar/burma situation, the maths she is doing I cant even understand. Such blinkered thinking about younger generations is appalling.
most ADULT gamers are stupid yeh, I can totally get on board with that one.
hmm a bit ferocious maybe, but I really cant stand this whole reasoning as above post. Possibly needs a comm chat discussion but we all know how they turn out these days eh?
nicked on 21/4/2014 at 07:34
That and a lot of the lack-of-hand-holding in older games is actually just bad design, and all the instructions were written in the manual.
demagogue on 21/4/2014 at 07:54
For the record, I'm not against hand-holding per se, and I think older games had plenty points of broken design too. Actually what I think was more broken in classic games was the bad UI, and the narrow unforgiving world they had, which is a little different than no-hand-holding.
Well, different things were broken. Classic games made classic mistakes like putting players in unwinnable situations, or insta-death puzzles, or puzzles requiring clairvoyance, or just stupid puzzles that don't belong in a game, things that we've happily learned from.
The line for me is more about authenticity and atmosphere. It's when a game reminds the player that he or she is playing a game, and doesn't try creating an atmosphere or mood and maintaining it, that's what I don't like. And I think in the past there was more attention on simulationism and sticking to the world than today, although this may be over-simplifying.
"Player dumbness" maybe isn't the right term for what I'm thinking about. What I'm thinking about has more to do with expectations about what games should or shouldn't have. Expecting popups or achievements as part of the terrain, or that games are about living out a scripted experience (as opposed to a ritual of playing through a world), runs the wrong way with me. I don't need to go on a crusade about it, but it's part of the recent culture that doesn't jive with me.
Jason Moyer on 21/4/2014 at 08:33
If there is a problem with modern games it's the focus on having artificial difficulty or compelling narrative instead of making something with mechanics that are fun and rewarding because "we're adults, having fun is bad". I memorized a pattern to defeat this difficult section and now I'm rewarded with more of your shitty story and/or another pattern to memorize, I better get points and/or an achievement for that.
Tony_Tarantula on 21/4/2014 at 18:20
Quote Posted by PigLick
What the hell school system are you talking about? My daughter is studying history and law(she is 15), currently looking at the myanmar/burma situation, the maths she is doing I cant even understand. Such blinkered thinking about younger generations is appalling.
most ADULT gamers are stupid yeh, I can totally get on board with that one.
hmm a bit ferocious maybe, but I really cant stand this whole reasoning as above post. Possibly needs a comm chat discussion but we all know how they turn out these days eh?
Speaking more of the norm here....plus most teachers these days discourage critical thinking. They expect their students to memorize and then recite what the textbook tells them and what the teacher's opinion is.
Modern video games are also the same way. They reward you for doing exactly what the narrative tells you to do, in exactly the way you were told to do it. There's no room for exploration, problem solving, or any outside the box thinking in the mass market games....and these are the ones that count because those are the ones that pull in new gamers, and that the industry executives push their publishers to imitate.
(
http://kotaku.com/we-are-still-shooting-the-hinges-and-it-still-sucks-1445267097)
june gloom on 21/4/2014 at 18:23
The only thing worse than that article are the comments.
Tony_Tarantula on 21/4/2014 at 18:31
Quote Posted by dethtoll
The only thing worse than that article are the comments.
Terrible article, but good point.
Watch the original video and try to tell me that modern AAA games aren't breeding stupidity
[video=youtube;KYZG7Ll_mFQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYZG7Ll_mFQ[/video]
