toxicitizen

Writing them off entirely does seem like a bit of an overreaction, yeah. There's room for games to be disappointing and still be worthwhile. Comparing them to Gears of War is definitely selling them short. I made it a point to say they're still good games for a reason. Dragon Age II is unredeemable garbage, though.

I'm just gonna go ahead and say Bioware. I used to think they could do no wrong. I should be thankful, really. They single-handedly made me realize how silly of a notion that is to have towards a game developer. I absolutely loved Dragon Age: Origins but couldn't bear more than 10 hours of Dragon Age II. Basically, I came back from the Deep Roads and realized I just had to re-explore Kirkwall. That's when I quit out of the game and uninstalled it. It just struck me as the epitome of a lazy cash-in. It came out a mere 18 months after Origins and it really shows. As a result, I have no interest whatsoever in Inquisition. I might give it a shot if the reception is good once it comes out but there is zero hype or anticipation for now. Then there's Mass Effect 2 and 3. They're hardly bad games but I couldn't help but be massively disappointed by the direction the series took with ME2. ME1 was a legit RPG that just happened to have cover shooting mechanics in it. ME2 and 3 are very much the opposite: cover shooters that just happen to have light RPG mechanics in them. Most of the major locations in the original were these massive hubs that you explored and completed quests in. The Citadel felt like a real place then, you could go from almost any point A to any point B entirely on foot and I loved that. In the sequels, you pick a mission on the space map and get teleported to a corridor shooter level. No exploration whatsoever and you're never going back there again. The story was entertaining and, even if they were ultimately meaningless, the choices were fun to make. But the sequels lost a lot of what made me love the original so much. ME2 and 3 are unarguably better made and designed but, even though it was pretty rough around the edges, I still like the original better.

Most of Nihon Falcom's games are developed for or ported to PC. They're pretty popular in China, apparently. Those versions just rarely get localized. I love that XSEED has been changing that. As for the plats, I think I was stuck at 16 for a while? I only did Hotline Miami a few weeks ago and Metal Gear Solid 3 on Vita this week. The PS3 version has a separate list so I used that transfarring thing to transfer my save and it automatically unlocked most of the big ones. I just had to do another quick speed run to get the platinum a second time.

Man, I'm really glad I didn't pick them up during the summer sale. They were twice as expensive! I guess maybe they had further discounts planned but were never picked for a daily or vote? Anyway, Origin is the only one I really needed since it's PC exclusive for some reason and I already own the others on PSP/Vita. But what the hell, I want XSEED to bring more games to Steam so I don't mind throwing some money at them. Also, the next time I feel like replaying Felghana it'll be nice to be able to do it on a bigger screen and at a higher resolution. Even the Vita's OLED can't work miracles, the PSP version kinda looked like ass.

Yeah, the entire concept of a backlog got a hell of a lot more manageable once I adopted that mindset. I went through my entire Steam library and made a backlog category for "I actually want to play/try this". There's probably more I'd be interested in but those are what I'm focusing on for the foreseeable future. Otherwise, it would be a futile endeavor what with the constant indie bundles and sales. That game count is going up at a faster rate than I can play them and besides, who the hell has time to play all those fucking games anyway? I mean, I'm nearing 700 games on Steam but easily a fifth of that is stuff I probably wouldn't even touch. Most of it came from bundles, some were impulse purchases because they were dirt cheap and it seemed like a good idea at the time. I mean, shit, sometimes I'll see a title and literally go "what the fuck is THAT?" or "when did I even get this?!". Like, just glancing over at my list of uninstalled indie games and right away I see AVSEQ, Bientot l'été and English Country Tune and I haven't a fucking clue what any of them are or where I even got them from. I actually made a second category called "summer backlog" with games I intended to play over the summer but I barely touched it lol. I blame my Vita for that. On the plus side, I basically cleared my (retail) Vita backlog! There's still a little under two months left but I'm focusing on my PS3 backlog for now. It's down to only about half a dozen games and I'd like to clear it ASAP since I'm planning to get a PS4 this fall. I'm also a lot less anal than I used to be about finishing games I'm not really enjoying. I'm never going back to finish Nier, for example. And after 20 or so hours of play, Tales of Symphonia can fuck right off. I gave that game more than a fair shot and it bored the shit out of me.

Metal Gear Solid 3. That would be the Vita version. Peace Walker didn't quite scratch the MGS itch I had so I felt like replaying this one. I'm playing them out of order but whatever. I've stopped counting how many times I've replayed it over the years but it's up there with the original Max Payne and Ocarina of Time. Definitely one of my all-time favorites. That ending never fails to give me chills. Man, what a game. It's always a blast to revisit it and doing so on Vita was pretty damn great but also very frustrating at times. See, they kinda mangled the controls pretty badly. But, to be fair, I think they did the best they could with the limited options they had. The problem is, this is a game that made use of damn near every single function the DualShock 2 provided. So, not only does the Vita lack two shoulder buttons as well as clickable sticks, the DS2 actually had fucking pressure sensitive face buttons on top of that. As a result, I was forced to adapt my play style because some things just couldn't be pulled off reliably. For example, when pressed against a wall, there was no telling if I'd be able to move or if Snake would just get locked into place and peek to his sides instead. To say it was frustrating is a massive understatement and I could never figure out what I was doing wrong. It just seemed finicky as hell. Then you had to do these obnoxious swipes on the back touchpad for more "advanced" stuff like interrogations, throat slitting and first-person peeking/leaning. It was a fucking nightmare. But, control issues aside, the port is otherwise pretty solid (hehehe...). The framerate takes a hit whenever there's a lot going on on-screen but that was to be expected. I was actually surprised by how well it ran most of the time, especially considering this is a game that pushed the PS2 to its limits. I was following a guide to get the platinum in a single playthrough but apparently I fucked up at some point. I thought I had done everything right but at very end the score screen said 1 kill. One. Fucking. Kill. I don't even know how it could've happened, I was so careful. So I'm missing just the no-kill trophy before I can get the platinum. Thank fuck I didn't miss any of those stupid Kerotan frogs, though, because fuck redoing that shit. Also, shooting every single one of them unlocks the stealth camo and the EZ Gun, which should make a NG+ no-kill speedrun fairly trivial. Also, turns out there's a camo suit that makes your footsteps silent on top of that, so I can literally just run right in front of enemies and they'll never know I was even there. Kinda gives a new meaning to ghosting. But yeah, those fucking frogs, man. I did a Kerotan run years ago back on PS2 and redoing it now was as much of a pain in the ass as it was back then. Whoever thought it was a good idea to have a bunch of them during the bike chase needs to have rusty nails shoved up his ass. When you miss one (and holy shit are they hard to hit), you can't just restart the checkpoint and there's no easy way to kill yourself. You're forced to quit back to the main menu, go through all the splash screens and reload your game completely. After an hour of that shit, I was ready to throw my Vita against the wall. Ugh... I'm glad that part's behind me.

Bayonetta 1 and 2!

Hahaha, what the hell. Yeah, that doesn't exactly sound like sane behavior...

Oh, I see. If it's still readable then whatever. This forum is a nightmare when it goes into slow-ass mode. We can just make new threads. Also, I didn't know Bouchart had a thing with Ethan specifically. Did they argue a lot or something?

Yeah, you could not poke fun at that guy. I remember at one point he mentioned having an interest in finance-related stuff and people thought it was funny. So they'd randomly bring it up in conversation as a joke and he'd get super pissy and legitimately annoyed by it.

What does archived mean? Just locked from posting or hidden and unreadable?

Hahaha, that's probably it, yeah. But man, that first page. It's like an obituaries section for this forum. Most of those people are long gone. Strangelove's intro is still the best, though. I'm surprised I even remembered it. edit: And goddamn, this is what I was talking about in FDS' status the other day! Third page of this thread and there's already drama! Man, those were the good old days, I tell you...

I'm not sure how to respond to those accusations... And, yeah, a year isn't going to be enough. I've been here since like.. 2011?

Lol. Quoted to preserve your ineptitude at making shit up. You got the wrong initials there, buddy... But now you got me curious what my actual first post was. And it seems the posting history from our profile only goes back 5 posts?! What the hell, Dean?!

It's Quebec and you know it!

You're dead to me.

If we truly were real canadian bros, you would know it in your soul. In your soul, Cowboy!

I think that's where FLD is from, so, yeah, sort of explains a lot.... You don't even know which province I'm from?! I won't lie. I'm hurt, Cowboy...

Oh, you shouldn't have any issues, then. Jaguar is the one that pissed many people off. I found him to be a fair challenge but a lot of people really hated the colored shields, for some reason. Something about them being "artificial difficulty bullshit" or whatever. I think those people are just bad at games. He was a fucking nightmare on hard, though.

I've played the game like 3 times now and this is the first time I even see that boss, so that's most definitely some of the new content exclusive to the edition you're playing. Nah, don't worry, you'll encounter more challenging bosses later on. One in particular will basically require you to have mastered almost all the skills the game has thought you.

The combat can be challenging later on and there's one or two optional platforming bits that can be infuriating. But if you're playing on normal and avoid the DLC challenges like the plague (El Inferno or whatever), then you shouldn't have any issues. It's probably my favorite game of 2013. They actually added a few new levels and, I think, some new powers as well. So it's not just a straight up port, there's new content exclusive to this edition.

Yeah, finding reviewers whose opinions you generally respect or agree with really is the best thing to do here. I disagree with Jim Sterling's reviews more often than not but I certainly respect his opinion. A 5/10 from him won't make me write off a game entirely but I'll certainly want to know what it was that made him feel it deserved that score. Yeah, this is all subjective as hell. But I tend to favor smaller-range scales, like the 5 stars system Ethan mentioned. None of that 100 points decimal scale bullshit. I mean, shit, for all the garbage that's on that site, I think Kotaku's Yes/No system is actually a good idea.

You do realize that Call of Duty has a story-based campaign, right? I get what you're saying here but I think you're looking at it wrong. You're certainly not wrong that DXHR is cyberpunk and Fallout 3 is post-apocalyptic. But you're only describing their narrative settings here. Again, you're using your personal preferences of story-based games as hard limits to define them. Some games simply don't have stories or take place in more generic settings. How would those narrative descriptions be helpful, then? I mean, what does "cyberpunk" really tell you about Deus Ex as a game? I agree that First-Person Shooter is a stupid name, but really, it tells you everything you need to know about how it plays, doesn't it? Telling me Deus Ex is a First-Person RPG tells me what kind of game it is, cyberpunk tells me what kind of story/universe it has. Transistor is also cyberpunk but beyond that it has very little in common with Deus Ex. Simply saying "cyberpunk" is fine for purely passive story-based mediums like books or movies, but for something interactive like a video game it's simply inadequate because of how varied the experiences can be. When looking for something new to play, I'll think about it in terms of what type of mechanics I'd like to play (FPS, RPG, Turn-Based strategy, etc...) over what kind of narrative genre it is, but that's just me. Miscommunication it was, then. Like I said, describing the mechanics is every bit as important (if not more) as describing the narrative setting when it comes to video games. Games are by their very nature interactive experiences and trying to categorize them purely in terms of passive ones is doing the medium a disservice. Fair enough. I just thought some of your points were kind of illogical and poorly constructed. When I encounter that, my first instinct is to doubt the authenticity of the argument. Especially when I see phrases like "I'm clearly right", which is something a troll would say to try and get a rise out of people. This is the internet, after all.

Oh, I'm not offended. I just think you're saying very silly things. Don't misunderstand my tone for anger, that's just how I tend to talk. Also, your analogies were so bad that I was suspecting a troll and, well, the "I'm clearly right" part doesn't help you there. I'm not sure why you keep going back to that football match example because it makes no sense. It's a sporting event that just happened to have cameras pointed at it, it's not a crafted piece of filmed entertainment. It's really more akin to a concert DVD. Almost everything else you listed is fair game, though. The only reason a "film critic" wouldn't pay attention to those other things would because it's not his job to review them. But the rules of doing so would be largely the same whether it's a movie, live-action TV or even animation. Hell, I'd expect a film critic to review a feature documentary because why not. That's fine. I'm not particularly into multiplayer games either. But you're confusing mediums with genres, here. Just because you wouldn't play it doesn't make it a different medium. No, handing you a COD game is like handing you a copy of The Shining when you don't like horror films. It's still very much a film. And I really need to point out that the inherent contradiction with what you're saying while calling something else an oversimplification blows my freaking mind, here. You are trolling, yes? Well, you're right about them being different genres... Why should being based around social interaction or competition magically make it a different medium? Different type of experience, sure. But that's about it.

And I'm the one with a flawed understanding of what a review system needs to be? I'm sorry but this is ridiculous. COD is as much a video game as anything else. Your own personal preferences are absolutely irrelevant here. Plus, I'm not sure the review system you've been describing actually exists anywhere in the real world... Again, this makes no sense whatsoever. You can't draw arbitrary lines to define which video games qualify as being video games. I mean, I can kinda see where people are coming from when they say that Dear Esther or Gone Home aren't games. I strongly disagree but I can at least see why they might feel that way. What you're saying here, though, is absolute fucking nonsense. This analogy simply doesn't work. With games, framerate is directly related to performance. It's irrelevant to films because they all run at the same one. But when The Hobbit came out in 48 FPS, reviews made mention of it because it was suddenly very relevant and actually had an effect on the viewing experience. If a movie has bad lighting or contrast, then any reviewer who knows what he's talking about will make mention of it. But the same goes when it's particularly good. You think the artistic merit of a film only goes as far as the script and acting? Holy shit, man, there's so much more to it.