deathshadow on 10/5/2011 at 00:47
Quote Posted by Brethren
Everything I heard about Arcania was that it was oversimplified and dumbed down (didn't play it personally though). Taking the "Gothic" label off it wouldn't change that. Bad games are bad games, period.
Unfortunately that's a bad rap for the game -- it's compared to it's siblings unfairly, unlike TDS is is a good game and would be better looked upon if it wasn't tied to gothic -- because people are going in with expectations. MOST of the negatives you hear against it actually start with "From what I heard" -- you take it out of the context of being a Gothic game and it's at least on par with Dragon Age 2 (possibly better given there's less shove two fingers up your nose to lead you around) ... and miles better than say "The First Paladin" or "Assassin's Creed".
Though to put that in perspective, I was NEVER able to play AC as the controls were garbage -- I never made it past the training where you're supposed to walk through the ghost crowd unnoticed...Arcania IS a good game -- good gameplay, good graphics, stable, well polished interface, decent character interactions; it's just extremely linear compared to it's brethren; It is NOT a Gothic game and people expecting a Gothic game will be disappointed.
TDS is not a good game, probably would have sold in numbers lower than Daikatana without the name on it, and no matter how much shellac you use the Thief name on it was effectively polishing a turd.
Though that sums up pretty much EVERYTHING to come out of Ion Storm. "Sophisticated gaming investor -- will give money to Romero for vague promises and over-budget thrice delayed titles that STILL feel rushed out the door when released."
Fafhrd on 10/5/2011 at 01:57
Quote Posted by Sulphur
The game doesn't really have much in the way of
interactive bits though, does it? It's at odds with Thief/Deus Ex because it's a fundamentally less cerebral game to begin with. I get what you mean about multiple pathways through the environments that aren't bright welts of red jumping out at you from monochromatic starkness, but all those involve the same actions and objects: run, grab, jump.
At no point through my playthroughs did I see any real benefit to navigating one way vs. the other - it wasn't really about giving players freedom of choice or tools to create choice (and how could they have? It's a platformer) except for the semi-rare occasions when you were cornered by Blues.
I think relegating it to 'just a platformer' does the game a pretty large disservice, but I think this'll have to be an 'agree to disagree' thing. I found Faith's evasion of opponent's through speed and movement every bit as complex and rewarding a mechanic as Garrett's evasion through stillness and shadows, and nowhere is that more apparent than doing a no-guns run through of The Shard on Hard (or doing a no-combat (or at least as close as is possible, since there are at least two points where you have to disarm somebody) playthrough of the entire game on Hard. I'll always lament the lack of an official level editor to allow people to really expand on that aspect of the gameplay , and EA's decision to sit on the IP and not allow DICE to do the same (though I'm still sorely tempted to try and recreate Life of the Party in the hacked editor. I just don't know if it has the ability to link levels with discreet load zones).
Quote:
Sly bugger. I've got questions, but I don't want you to trip over any NDAs or anything. Can you say or even give me a hint as to whether Dead Island lives up to the trailer/is otherwise any good? I'm curious, but I understand if you can't say anything.
Technically,
I'm not under NDA on it since my company passed on it and the look I took wasn't exactly 'sanctioned,' but it would probably still be a bad idea for me to go into much detail. The trailer is not representative of the gameplay in any way shape or form, beyond 'zombies on tropical island' (but then it wasn't really meant to be. It was intended to get the name out there and it did that job spectacularly) But what I looked at was still pretty incredible.
Muzman on 10/5/2011 at 07:45
Mirror's Edge has a lot options for different "routes" but it's often at the micro level. Some might say this doesn't really count since that's true of most games, but it's rarely quite like this. The interactivity is deep in that a wall is a wall. There's no discreet place for 'climb or wall run here'. If it's vertical and solid you can use it in a number of different ways (there are a couple of annoying limitations, doorways for example, but they aren't too bad). The way you can increase and maintain momentum and stack successful manouvers allowing you jump higher and further etc really shows the game for what it is. In numerous instances there'll be a fairly obvious sequence of what to do to get somewhere, but a skillful player can skip it entirely. You can see this in some videos, people pulling off stunts you'd swear were impossible and you'd never do it, they must be cheating somehow, but the game has allowed for it. A bit like real acrobatics there. (of course there are real exploits too, but I'm not talking about those)
You could easily say the design and pacing of the game didn't really work well enough to bring players along as far as what can really be done in it and there I would agree. But it's still there.
Petike the Taffer on 10/5/2011 at 18:22
Quote Posted by Tomi
As long as some people compare every single detail of Thief 4 to the old Thief games, you simply can't please them. I may be in a minority here, but I thought that Thief: DS was a pretty good game on its own, even if it didn't impress me as much as TDP and TMA did when I first played them. As a Thief game Deadly Shadows was a slight disappointment, but it was still one of the best games of that year in my opinion.
Don't worry, you are not alone. This taffer sees it similarly. ;)
jtr7 on 10/5/2011 at 21:47
Quote:
I thought that Thief: DS was a pretty good game on its own, even if it didn't impress me as much as TDP and TMA did when I first played them. As a Thief game Deadly Shadows was a slight disappointment, but it was still one of the best games of that year in my opinion.
Then you are in agreement, not in opposition, to the disappointment of the others, and only differ in how you state it.
Muzman on 11/5/2011 at 10:05
On the topic of being led by the hand in a lot of games, I reckon reviewers have to shoulder some of the blame for that trend in recent years.
It's that faint hint of impatience a lot of them get when a game is a little bit too hard for them. Actually for many of them it isn't faint at all. They resent having their time wasted and you can almost hear the deadline looming while they try and get through it. Even the venerable and generally well meaning RPS guys have shown this at times.
We bitch about focus group based design and so on pandering to idiots and that is probably to blame for designers terrified someone what know what a door is, but I think the impatient tone of a lot of reviews doesn't help either. I wouldn't be surprised to find some old school columnist or other complaining about the state of modern gaming on one hand, but with the other writing disparaging things about a game being slightly frustrating at some point.
Briareos H on 11/5/2011 at 10:18
Agreed on all counts.
John Walker is particularly notable for doing this often and yet in the mind of most devs, you couldn't get more hardcore-PC-centric than RPS.
Quite frankly, I don't know of a single publication in games journalism not guilty of this hypocrisy on a regular basis.
Brian The Dog on 11/5/2011 at 12:10
I'm happy for them to make a Thief 4, even with a fair bit of hand-holding, but we need the ability to turn such things off. Thief II had it right - on "Normal" difficulty it did a fair bit of hand-holding, but this was not present on "Expert".
Thief III had a good story, but the engine was dire, there were some strange design decisions (automated blackjacking?!?!?), and the hardware limitations didn't help. If the engine had been good and they had released the Editor earlier, then I'm sure T3 would have had more of a Fan Mission following. So I'll happily accept Thief4 providing they (a) get the engine right, and (b) release an Editor. That way, even if the game is a complete mess, we can produce excellent fan missions.
Fafhrd on 12/5/2011 at 03:31
Quote Posted by Muzman
I wouldn't be surprised to find some old school columnist or other complaining about the state of modern gaming on one hand, but with the other writing disparaging things about a game being slightly frustrating at some point.
Generally hardness complaints from the press come from when a game seems arbitrarily hard, though. By which I mean the player/reviewer seems to do everything right and the game seems to just decide 'fuck you, I'm going to kill you anyway' with little to no hint as to what it was, exactly, that you did wrong. Psychonauts' much maligned Meat Circus is a pretty strong example of this (though I honestly never understood the complaints on that one. Took me two, maybe three tries). There's definitely a tendency to overcompensate for moments like that, but there are times where the hardness complaint is valid.
PigLick on 13/5/2011 at 07:44
Quote Posted by Muzman
worth noting at this point that I think TDS contains only one level worthy to be called a Thief level. There's three or four others that are fun and atmospheric and in no way bad, but still on the cusp. Only one where I was saying to myself "Hey this is the real deal now"
well which level was it goddammit!
