Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.

[Thanir]

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I hadnt paid for a video game in like 2 years. Last month I bought: FIFA 2008, Orange Box and COD4. I wish instead of buying Orange Box I had just bought TF2 because everything else in Orange Box is worthless. At first Episode 2 sounded cool, but do I really want to play expansion levels of a game i beat like 2 years ago? Not really. So basically I paid 50 bucks for TF2, which seems like it would sell alone for like 20 bucks. Kind of a lame deal imo.

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I agree with this for the most part, I havent played the HL2 expansions that came with OJ, but it did also come with Portal. While the game is short, its still fun for most people, and that has a little value...but yeah even that with TF2 doesn't equal the full price of OJ Box.

[Dire]

Oblivion (and the Morrowind series in general):

These games could be so incredible with a major rebalancing and getting rid of all the broken spells (invisibility - THANK YOU FOR GETTING RID OF LEVITATE AT LEAST) and lame repetitive quests and lame repetitive monsters they use to fill a lame repetitive world and their 5 types of lame repetitive dungeons. I actually do like the games, and plan on buying the expansion - but they could be just so much better than they are. I really prefer quality over quantity. I'd much prefer a dozen challenging, well balanced and interesting places to explore than the 1000 clones of crap Oblivion offers.

[Blarg]

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Someone once wrote up a stunning essay on how Street Fighter was a fundamentally better game, but I don't have the patience nor the blood alcohol level to find it atm.

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http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20...irlin_01.shtml

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Good article. David Sirlin writes good stuff. I wish the gaming magazines put out stuff anywhere near as interesting as this. They're almost entirely ridiculously fluffy.

I like this bit at the end especially:

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There are mountains of rules in the terms of service that tell you that you shouldn't do things that you totally can do in the game if you want. Why they don't just alter their design and code so you can't do these things is beyond me. But this mentality is drilled into the players to the point that they start believing that it's ok. They start believing that it's not ok to experiment, to try out anything the game allows in a non-threatening environment.


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One of the things that makes games, whether FPS, RTS, or RPG, fun for me is figuring out the puzzle of them, and especially trying to do less with more. It's hugely gratifying to figure out how to take on a monster by yourself that usually takes at least a few people to do, for instance. Or godly equipment to do. Or both. Unless there's truly something broken going on in the encounter -- in which case they really should just fix it instead of whining at players for catching them with their pants down -- players should be allowed to be as creative and skilled as they can manage to be. Endless paranoia and bickering about rules and GM decisions and appeals don't really need to be in a game. Being clever in a game is an adventure in itself, and the opportunity to do should never be discouraged.

Random Example: "Kiting" certain monsters -- having them run after you or some dude while you or he or a whole group beats or spell casts or sics pets on them, while they trail behind you like the tail on a kite, is banned in certain games entirely or only against certain monsters. While kiting a monster over the top of someone so it kills him can be a problem, it's the player behavior that is the possible problem, not the mechanism of kiting itself. You don't need to ban an act, just a player who uses it solely in order to wreck up the other players. If you even need that. Figuring out how to use your abilities to their best effect in a game is the whole point, though, so that should never be discouraged. Just change the game mechanics, if you don't want people to discover, use, and enjoy them to the full.

[Yeti]

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Disgustingly dated graphics that remind me of a day in PC gaming I'm glad we're far past

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pardon? heh

[rubbrband]

There are a of games that I really enjoyed the 1s game in the series but can't really stand them any more b/c they are the same old thing over an over. Good examples for this are GTA, tony hawk, and resident evil. I really like other games like madden and halo wich change every little but i could play them forever.

[Dudd]

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Oblivion (and the Morrowind series in general):

These games could be so incredible with a major rebalancing and getting rid of all the broken spells (invisibility - THANK YOU FOR GETTING RID OF LEVITATE AT LEAST) and lame repetitive quests and lame repetitive monsters they use to fill a lame repetitive world and their 5 types of lame repetitive dungeons. I actually do like the games, and plan on buying the expansion - but they could be just so much better than they are. I really prefer quality over quantity. I'd much prefer a dozen challenging, well balanced and interesting places to explore than the 1000 clones of crap Oblivion offers.

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I'll redirect this rant towards Oblivion's combat system. This game would be 1000x better if there was any method of skill to it at all instead of just button mashing until the random number generator decided to give you a hit. If I were designing the next Elder Scrolls, I'd steal Fight Night's control scheme, pretty much the only well designed aspect of that game, and modify it for melee combat. Flick up to your weapon side, and you'll stab with the sword. Make a slashing motion, and you'll slash your sword. Use the right trigger to initiate a blocking sequence, and then moving the stick up and down would use either your shield or your weapon to block an enemies attack, depending on which side you flicked the stick. Holding the left trigger would have you move your body around using the left stick to try and dodge an enemies attack. When I played Oblivion, it just felt incomplete, like they had went to all the trouble to create this massive world and then tacked on a combat system straight from 1995, and I could never get into the game because I want to feel like I control my character's fate, not the random number generator. This wouldn't ruin the RPG aspect, make me stronger, faster, able to deal more damage as I leveled up, but fix the damn combat system.

[goofyballer]

The problem with changing Oblivion's combat system is that it is an RPG and I don't think that's how RPGs are supposed to work (I mean, I could be wrong, but aren't they based off the pen-and-paper type games back in the day?). Like, your character will meet monsters that it's not supposed to be able to kill at level 5, so isn't it a bit of a cop-out if some players will be able to kill those enemies at level 5 just because they're better at the combat system than others? I think the point of an RPG is that it's not a shooter and it's not about controlling the action down to that degree of accuracy, it's about developing your character until it's strong enough to handle these types of challenges.

[Dudd]

Yes, but I'm saying however that it is 2007 and time to stop being constrained by games people were playing 30 years ago when all they had was pen and paper and dice. Take a look at how sports games are evolving, look at the difference between the first Tony Hawk and Skate, how much more fluid and responsive a fully analog control scheme is versus hitting a button to grind. I just love the idea of a world like Oblivion but hate that we're trapped with a terrible control scheme just because that's the way it's always been done. If I'm a thief, I should be able to sneak up behind someone and stab them, not strike five time before my blade connects and then only remove 5 hit points, all because I chose not to spend my first 5 hours playing the game killing rats. It just feels extremely artificial. A game like Deus Ex had it perfect, as you progress you gain skills and experience so you shoot more accurately, run more quickly, lift heavier objects, but if I play smart at the beginning and manage to get myself in a position for a close head shot, I'm not going to end up shooting myself in the foot just because it's the beginning of the game and I have the motor skills of a 6 month old. It's just that for some reason there's this expectation that if your RPG includes sword play, you can't have any semblance of a skill based combat system.

[goofyballer]

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A game like Deus Ex had it perfect, as you progress you gain skills and experience so you shoot more accurately, run more quickly, lift heavier objects, but if I play smart at the beginning and manage to get myself in a position for a close head shot, I'm not going to end up shooting myself in the foot just because it's the beginning of the game and I have the motor skills of a 6 month old.

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Well put. fwiw I wasn't so much saying that Oblivion's system is great and shouldn't be changed, just that I can see why the developers didn't want to compromise the gameplay experience by turning it into a shooter. I imagine it's fairly difficult to come up with a control scheme that gives the player more control over combat actions without making that compromise; if someone can come up with one, that'd be great. I think if Bethesda couldn't come up with something better though (fwiw, I read somewhere that Oblivion's system is improved over Morrowind's - Morrowind's system was basically straight math, whereas in Oblivion you actually did have a degree of control over stuff like dodging attacks) then the choice they made is fine.

I suspect they will improve it in the next Elder Scrolls game...god, does it make me sick that I already can't wait for it even though it's prob 3-4 years away?

[Blarg]

I think Civ 4 was very disappointing because it substituted complexity for depth, and tacked on a ruinously bad combat system that was vastly worse than games that came out more than a decade earlier.

The thing is, parts of it were wonderful.