Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.

[TheSalche]

@ Civ comments ... I agree about the combat system. I always felt there should be some sort of "tech era" adjustment, because even with city walls on a mountain, guys using swords could never defeat tanks

@ Bioshock
This game has the best graphics/water effects on the 360 period. Probably won't see a game reach that kind of level of graphics achievements till next holiday season. That being said, the gameplay got repetitive at times. Yes there are several ways to take down big daddies, but there are also 12 of them in the game, all of which are basically the same fight. Once you figure out the "best" way to kill them there's not much reason to experiment with or use other lesser ways. Also the vita chambers are probably one of the worst respawn ideas in gaming. I feel like there should be some sort of penalty for death besides a walking inconvenience. I think a full blown revert to last save system would have been poor as well, seeing as how the player tends to die at least once for every big daddy fight. The final boss battle was also really disappointing.

[Low Key]

Anything on the PS3 or Xbox360:

Why? It's all been done. There is nothing new to be had. I know, Halo 3 looks better and has a few new drivable vehicles. Big deal! Why not just make the graphics card on the PS2 or Xbox replaceable? Solves the whole problem right there!

(And no, I'm not a huge Wii fanboy, I think, coupled together, all of the Wii games might add up to about 2 1/2 real good games. PC gaming made me think gaming with a regular remote was stupid. Wii gaming made me think it was dead.)

Salche, if you haven't watched Zero Punctuation's review of Bioshock, I think you'd like it. If you can understand what he says.

[grouchie]

I'm not going to say I disagree with you, but I do not completely agree either.

I think the games today are just graphics and details and then if there is time during development we'll try to throw a story and some characters together. This is my biggest problem with games today.

I thought the gameplay on God Of War was great and the graphics were good as well, but all off that for a game that gets beat in 8 hours.

What happened to games that were hard and challenging?
There are games that, as a kid, I was never able to beat, like ghosts and [censored] goblins.
I think the game was pretty much impossible without cheating.

Other games made me struggle for damn near forever and when I finally beat it I felt like I really accomplished something. The original Castlevania comes to mind here. Took me forever to finally get to Dracula and when I did I could not beat him right away.

When I finally beat Dracula I was so damn elated that i paused the game until my buddy came home from school (i was,er, sick that day...yeah). WHen he got home I called him and told him he had to come down to watch the ending with me.

Slightly dissapointed when he changed into something else unexpectedly and kicked my arse.... But, another two tries and I killed all of his forms and we were both excited.

When is the last time people really played a game and beat it and felt like they accomplished something?

Final Fantasy 7 was that way for me.
Halo on super duper hardcore mode with my friend was that way (but only because I don't play shooters and suck at them, so this took some time for me).

Games today are regurgated from the past, dressed up a little and offer not a whole lot, especially for single player guys like me.

The new Halo is supposed to be great, online. Same with a lot of the other shooters that are out. Little gameplay, but a fucton to do if you play online.

I'm glad I just picked up Ninja Gaiden (i know, i'm a bit slow on things) because this game is actually going to take a while to beat because it's friggin difficult).


The other day I played some Final Fight and died about 3 million times.
I played the TMNT Arcade game and kept dying there too.

Other than having a blast with the games, I kept wondering why I don't die much in the new games released. Everything has been made easy so you don't have to worry about re-doing anything while you take a tour of the beautiful world that was created. The game play is ONLY there so they can show you the graphics anymore, and that sucks.

[Dire]

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.....

The game play is ONLY there so they can show you the graphics anymore, and that sucks.

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Couldn't agree more. I just think/hope that this is only a trend though. Graphics are starting to quickly reach a point of diminishing returns and so hopefully will start to become less of a selling point. And there's also an obsession with dumbing down games (*cough* Bioshock cheesa chambers) right now to try to sell them to the 'mainstream'. But the 'mainstream', as being currently targetted (which I do not think is the mainstream at all, but that's another rant), seems unlikely to be interested in playing a game like Bioshock to begin with!

[zyrrth]

Well, Bioshock sold like 600k in the first 2 months so I think the mainstream seemed quite interested in it.
I mean what's the alternative to making a game more accessible to the mainstream, I doubt Irrational/Looking Glass would receive funding for new 'shock' games if Bioshock bombed like all their other critically aclaimed games.
Same thing with Fallout 3, it's gonna be in first person and play more like a shooter but I'd still prefer a gimped game to no game at all.

What I do find ridiculous though is the length of singleplayer campaigns in actiongames nowadays: CoD4 5-6 hours, Gears of War 8-10 hours, Heavenly Sword 8-10 hours etc.

[JuntMonkey]

I've written about this here before, but Shadow of the Colossus.

It isn't that great. There are a handful of unique fights, but all the rest of the 16 are very repetitive. The controls get really annoying when you're ready to stab each monster in their sweet spot...it amounts to holding down R1 until the monster randomly decides to stop shaking around, and hoping that he randomly decides to stop before your character runs out of strength.

There is nothing to do whatsoever outside of the boss battles. I see the lonely but beautiful mood they were going for and they do a decent job at it, but it was done better and was better implemented with the gameplay in ICO.

This game appeals to a lot of gamers because they feel that it makes a good case for games being art. This argument makes sense if you just look at a short video of one of the massive majestic monsters tumbling around. But personally, I don't need any case to be made for games being art, I already know they are (and I don't know if anybody should care anyway), and any game that tries so hard is suspect in my mind. Super Mario 64 is a greater piece of art than Shadow of the Colossus despite the simplistic music, laughable plot, and silly, blocky characters.

[blackize]

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Super Mario 64 is a greater piece of art than Shadow of the Colossus despite the simplistic music, laughable plot, and silly, blocky characters.


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I know how much you love SM64, but that just isn't true.

[goofyballer]

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Oblivion sucks because of the levelling system.

[/ QUOTE ]just played again, it sucks because of the combat. Its atrocious.

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I really don't get all the hate on this. I played through like half of Morrowind (was kind of a noob to the Elder Scroll series at the time so there was still a lot I didn't experience) and most of the content in Oblivion (although not the expansion packs cause my 360 got fried and Best Buy made me give my HD back with my 70 hour character on it when I got it replaced [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]) and I never once felt like the combat system was taking me out of the game or anything. I still found a lot of fights challenging and engaging. Perhaps you guys are relying on combat itself too much? I used a lot of magic spells in the course of combat and figuring out the best use of mana to win a fight required a decent amount of strategy sometimes.

Also, as for the "it's all been done before" post, I disagree. Most of the innovation in gaming does seem to happen on the PC platform, as my most memorable gaming experiences (Morrowind, SS2) have been PC games even if they've spawned console counterparts. Cross-development has become a lot more popular though with the advent of the Xbox and the 360 so I think a lot of that innovation has already made its way onto consoles and will continue to do so. All signs so far point to Mass Effect being this type of game.

[Dire]

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Well, Bioshock sold like 600k in the first 2 months so I think the mainstream seemed quite interested in it.

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I'd disagree with that point. I think 'only' selling 600k actually supports my point that it didn't really have much 'mainstream' appeal. Definitely not the 'mainstream' that needs to have games dumbed down for them, at least.

[gusmahler]

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this would be a valid point if you were already a competitive shooter, and you spent your free time playing FPS video games instead of at the range. if someone isnt a guitar player i wouldnt expect them to understand, but when you see your guitar sitting there next to you and you re playing a game modelled after guitar playing it makes you feel bad for wasting time when you could be practicing. i dont think any of us here that play poker for money would consider spending much time playing a poker video game even if it somehow was really fun

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But if you're not aspiring to be a professional musician, what's the point in learning the real guitar?

In the end, all hobbies are a waste of time. That's the very definition of a hobby, something you do to occupy yourself when you're not making a living. In and of itself, practicing a real guitar is no more useful to your everyday life than practicing a guitar video game.

The thing is that some hobbies are more respected than others. Learning a foreign language or reading fine literature is something that others will respect more than watching porn or playing fantasy football.

But just because others think of playing video games as less valuable than playing an instrument doesn't mean that a particular individual ranks them the same way.