Games: Rate and Discuss

FrostedxB said:
Deadly Premonition - 2/10

I can't even....The combat is just....Gameplay so bad....Cannot continue this game after an hour of play. Playing it just a chore and I can't tell if it wants to be a horror game or a god damn comedy.
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AW! But itz so bad itz gud! :rolleyes:

I'm with you bro, it pisses me off that people are buying it because they have been recommended it by people who think that it's funny to rate a shit game so highly because none of it makes ****ing sense.
 
bam23 said:
Multiplayer. 100/10. Holy **** this is amazing. Minor complaints like the compass being too accurate and the volatile platforming infecting this mode as well but damn. This is ****ing fun and surprisingly spectator friendly. Lovelveiveliveltielovlevoeliet.
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Yeah, Im loving the MP too. At first I thought it was really dull, not much variation etc, but the suspense is hard to beat sometimes.

Like following your target, KNOWING there's a chance someone else is right behind you waiting for you to strike so they can confirm you are who you are and take you out right afterward...really makes you think twice about each move you make.

Ive been poisoned a few times, and literally didnt see whoever did it. I dont even know if its shot or you get stabbed like in the SP portion of the game, but Ive been walking around and suddenly die from poison, completely not seeing it coming.

And there's so many ways to decieve your assassin following you as well as take down your target. Killing your target from a bench is SO satisfying, or changing your appearance as you run around a corner and blend into a crowd, watching your follower run right past you and take out the wrong target, you walk up behind him and stun him and run off. Ohh its like salt in the wound.
 
GTA: The Lost and the Damned 6.5/10

Immediately superior to GTA4 because motorcycles are so much more fun and easy to drive than cars. Since the core gameplay is pretty limited, all the missions are pretty same-ish, but there's enough variety to get it done. Manages to keep a story that's contained enough to make me not hate it, even if many aspects of it make no sense. Per usual, the cutscenes are stupid and make me rage. However, this game is fun and has its own well contained little world with likable characters and fun gameplay which I didn't mind exploring at all.

I don't know if I'm ever going to finish BoGT.
 
Blueberry Garden - 8/10

I know this game is old, and there's not a ton of game to it. Should maybe dock more points for shortness, but it was nice. Took 3 tries to finish. Weird mix of calmness from flying around + anxiety (there's a time limit). But then after you win, you get to explore without time constraints and there's the "secret" webpage for ULTRA MEGA WINNERS. I liked it.

Also the whole "we're gonna give you stuff but not tell you what it does, figure it out yourself, btw there's a time limit" thing was somehow a lot less annoying than one would expect. Probably because I managed to beat it only knowing what about half the objects did.

[edit]
Just started vvvvv. I have mixed feelings here too. So, I am actually enjoying this and I was pretty good at some parts, but this game is kinda difficult. I'm already feeling carpal tunnel syndrome coming on after 2 hours! Very reminiscent of Flywrench except a bit easier -- not sure if the same dude made both games? And the flipping thing is a bit like Punishment except way less nauseating :). But Punishment was kinda hilariously absurd. My main frustration with these types of games (stemming back to ridiculously old-school crap like Arctic Adventure) is that the difficulty isn't in understanding what you need to do (this is always obvious after a few trials), but in the physical implementation of pushing the right keys with near-perfect timing. I'm pretty sure there were times I repeated HUNDREDS of trials to get it right.

tldr -- like, but not sure if I'm skilled enough to complete it :eek:.


[edit again]
Finally finished Max Payne. I feel like it must've taken me way longer to complete than it'd take normal people, because I played the entire game on my laptop using the finger touchpad instead of a mouse. :eek:

As for the actual game, it was mostly enjoyable. Since I just now played it, it was interesting to see all the elements that FEAR and The Matrix took from it (intentionally or not?).. There were some repetitive parts (the parking lot where every level of the lot might as well have been the same level, 5 or 6 times) and virtually no variety in enemy design, but I was satisfied enough with the "hey hey look at me i'm running around dodging bullets like a pro" aspects. Also, the ending was about as lame as HL2's was, in how you defeat the "boss". Still, I give it maybe 8/10. I suppose it was a lot more awesome back in the day.
 
LittleBigPlanet 2 - 200 big planets/10

If you liked the first one this is a no brainer. This game is fun. Please buy this game.

And then add me.
 
Assassin's Creed 2 7.5/10

I loved this game a lot more than I thought I would, probably one of my favorites. I really liked all the manipulated historical references. The game is especially interesting and fun if you've taken art history and payed any attention in high school history class. I was surprised that I actually liked the entirety of the story.

There were some pretty lame things about the game though. One is Desmond, he's just a very boring, generic character. There were also some really dumb as **** moments in the game like when-
That one chick is on the little island, and she is like "help me! help me!" and Ezio goes and saves her on his little boat. Really dumb way to introduce an important character, like why would Ezio care about this bitch? You don't even know who she is?

Also, at the end when you don't kill that fat Rapist Pope YOU'VE BEEN TRACKING THROUGH THE PAST TEN YEARS OF YOUR LIFE, WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR FAMILY'S DEATH, AND WAS MINUTES AWAY FROM CONTROLLING THE WORLD. Ezio says some dumb shit like "Killing you wont bring my family back", but what about all those other people, Ezio? You killed like two hundred other people, soldiers who probably had families, but you're going to let the child raping, world dominating pope live? Oh. Oh okay, that makes sense.

Oh wait no, he escaped...

Other than that, I really liked the overall tone and message of the game, this is probably my favorite aspect. A lot of the theme in ACII was anti-faith and pro-rationalism. Even though there is some disclaimer at the beginning of the game about "ACII being created by people of multiple religions and beliefs" or whatever, it's just there so Christians don't flip their shit.
The only people who don't believe AC is a shot at Mainstream Religion and Blind Faith, are either naive or in denial. It might be shown in a sort of basic and overt way; depicting religious authority as extreme caricatures, but it's nice to see a really mainstream game have some balls on this topic.
 
Brotherhood should get its ass on PC.

FEAR 2 - 9/10 for having the best ending a game could possibly have. In general the gameplay was sorta like COD with the ironsights and shit.
 
DEATHMASTER said:
Brotherhood should get its ass on PC.

FEAR 2 - 9/10 for having the best ending a game could possibly have. In general the gameplay was sorta like COD with the ironsights and shit.
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I hated FEAR 2 tbh, but I started it immediately after I finished the first one so maybe thats why.

Ending to FEAR 2 was just wtf.
 
SYSTEM SHOCK AVATAR!
 
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories - Great
Camera, controls and gameplay
My only previous experience of Silent Hill was the second one and that did creepy camera angles well. It was sometimes controlling the character in a Hitchcock film. But as spooky as it often was, I wasn't watching a film, I was playing a game and I needed to be able to see if there were two or five nurses in front of me and if there was a door at the end of this corridor. The camera was always very hit and miss in this regard. Well this game has an over the shoulder camera, which is much better overall. You sacrifice those creepy angles for actually being able to see what you're doing and much better immersion, and damn this game does immersion well. The remote as flashlight and camera control works very very well and you really feel like you're investigating the area instead of everything being laid out and obvious for you to find by camera angle and standing out from the background.

The controls are great. It's the best use of the Wii controls I've ever played. The remote acts as your right hand. And by that I don't mean it maps all the movements of you hand, but you control the flashlight by pointing the remote at the screen. The flashlight casts very good dynamic shadows across wherever you point it. It looks and fabulous and works brilliantly. The other use for the remote is that it acts as your phone. Whenever you get a phone call in the game the speaker in the remote rings and transmits the voice.

The phone thing is actually a really really clever move. It transfers the diaries, map and radio of the previous games into a smaller, more logical package. To access the map you just bring up your phone's GPS and instead of the incredibly convenient diaries and memos that everyone left everywhere to explain the plot and puzzles, you intercept old text messages and voicemails on your phone. It still doesn't make that much sense, but they're more natural now. They're messages people sent to others, they have a reason for existing, unlike the diaries that clearly only existed for exposition before. It also gives a much better reason for being able to check back on logs of previous messages; they're just stored on your phone. No longer are we to assume that Harry is carrying around twenty maps and has a photographic memory for every note and diary entry you find lying around. If you haven't played previous Silent Hill games you usually find a radio that emits static whenever enemies are nearby. In this one the phone also fills in for this radio.

The gameplay is basically divided into normal/snowy Silent Hill and frozen Silent Hill. The world freezes over in real time. Ice forms over everything and huge glaciers form and block your way. There are no loading times to hide this and it usually doesn't even happen during a cutscene. In fact there are pretty much no loading screens other than sometimes when you're running there's a little lag when you're bursting through a door, which you will be doing when the ice arrives. There's another good gameplay difference. Harry can move in this game. Insurmountable waist-high fences are amazing avoided in large numbers and during the chase scenes you will be climbing over and ducking under obstacles a lot. The rules are pretty simple. You won't be doing much climbing during the calm sections but you can easily climb walls during the chase bits and ice and snow-mounds are always impassable obstacles even if they you really would be able to climb over it, but it's just a consistent rule of the gameworld, so I'm happy to accept it.

So I've touched on something a few times now about the dual-world mechanic. When the world freezes over, you run. That's when the monsters appear and you have no weapons. You have to run as there is not a single one in the entire game other than flares, which just keep the monsters at bay temporarily and restore some of your body heat. Oh yeah, you have no healthbar and there are no healing items, the enemies jump on you and try to smother you and drain your body heat until you collapse. As you get colder Harry's movements become more and more sluggish. To get the enemies off you you have to push them off with the remote and nunchuck's motion controls. It works very well and it helps the immersion wonderfully. I found myself screaming "GET THE **** OFF ME" while pushing them off as hard as I could. The way you push also depends on where they grab you from, eg, if they catch you while you're climbing they'll wrap their arms around your neck and hang off you, and you have to punch them over your shoulder or they'll drag you down.

Graphics, world and presentation
This is a fabulous looking game. Sure it's the Wii so it's not that high-polygon, but the character models and animations are great and it as a very realistic look to it. No plastic people here. The dynamic shadows are great and really bring the world to life (your flashlight even illuminates individual snowflakes). The world is pretty seemless except for a few teleports-by-car-journey and the levels have a good air of reality to them. Puzzles are less out-there and often revolve around recreating a memory using hits from your intercepted text messages. It's an interesting system but I do miss the out-there logic puzzles a little too. None of the puzzles are really mentally challenging but they are interesting. An added bonus is you can go through different routes and get different puzzles on replays. Also of note is that you'll find lots of signs with phone numbers scattered around, all of which you can ring (some of which you have to). The world is just a lot less artificial than the previous games and things seem a lot less arbitrary. You don't press action to investigate something and read Harry's thoughts, you look at them yourself and everything is pretty detailed.

I don't think I've given a single criticism of this game yet so I'll start now: There is no tension in this game. Well ok there is story tension but there is no tension when it comes to danger. Like I said earlier when the world freezes over the monsters arrive and it is terrifying. It's scary in a very survivalist way, checking over your shoulder to see if there's something there but the moment that ice melts you are safe and you know it. It does come as a relief initially but it also removes all fear of danger. There is nothing to hurt you while the ice isn't there. It's too safe and very few puzzles take place in the ice world so you don't generally even have to worry about anything other than escape (though the puzzles that do take place in the ice world as thrilling).

My only other major criticism is a disastrously placed cutscene. This game is surprisingly good for cutscenes in general. They aren't boring and there aren't too many. You're normally in control in all places you would expect to be and it's all in real time (it doesn't even pause when you're looking at the map, which scared the shit out of me when I discovered the monsters show up on the map and there was one right ****ing behind me) and cutscenes are mostly just for dialogue, during which you still have control over where you face (they're in first person). There was only one cutscene I objected to but it was a terrible mistake. The monsters (and there is only one type of monster in the game) were introduced in a bad cutscene. Games developers: There is NO tension in watching my protagonist running away from something in a cutscene. Nothing even happens in that cutscene that you can't do in gameplay. Harry basically waves his flashlight around and runs. It's a total waste of what could have been a very tense and atmospheric introduction. It's a total trainwreck of a scene that could really have set the mood for the chase sequences but instead I get to watch my character running while I sit and feel no tension at all.

Sound
Voice acting is very good. They actually got proper voice actors it seems. No awkward pauses or strange stresses and the script is good. Sound effects in general are good and help mould the atmosphere. My only real complain with the soundtrack is the little "YOU DID IT!" tone that plays when you solve a puzzle that I think was taken straight from one of the sound cues in Oddworld. This isn't Zelda, I don't need a little SUCCESS tone. It's annoying and pointless. I already know I got it right, I just picked up the damn key.

The Psych Profile Thing
So if you don't know the game's main gimmick is that it supposedly psychologically profiles you as you play. You start off in a psychiatrist's office and answer some questions about yourself. Everyone once in a while you'll be take from the main game and returned to here for some more tests. These tests, and what objects that you choose to examine, determine which of the four psych profiles you get, which affect monster design, character design, the levels a little bit and of course the ending. Staring at pictures of half-naked women makes the monsters start to look a little like Silent Hill 2 nurses for example. The changes are mostly cosmetic but they're interesting. Most significantly, the character design changes. Cybil has three different uniforms she can wear (she's a cop) and two different personalities to choose from and other characters have similar changes they can have. The endings you can get are basically
Pervert, alcoholic, weakling (you get beaten by your wife) and good father. Strangely, the last one is by far the saddest.
There's a UFO ending too of course, which has a bunch of Silent Hill 2 references. The profile really didn't monitor the things I expected, it mainly notices what you examine more closely. I was expecting things like how long you spent in each room examining things, if you were thorough or just ran through the game etc. but it monitors how you react to things and what you find interesting instead of how you're really playing. At the end it reads out your psych profile. Mine was pretty accurate except it said twice I was the life of the party, which I'm not really so sure about. :p







Overall verdict: Go buy this game.


(oh yeah, it's also pretty short but there's replay value in there)
 
I would, if it was on PC.
 
Hitman: Blood Money 7.5/10

I haven't played any of the other Hitman games, but this was an extremely fun game. The story is silly and stupid, but fits, so I didn't really care too much about that. In terms of gameplay though it is a very amusing and enjoyable game; similar to the way Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory is. At times it felt like I was playing the role of the original Terminator in combination with Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men (hey you can even get a silenced shotgun). I also enjoyed how the game would rate your performance by releasing a newspaper article about your murders in each level. The game offers a variety of ways in which to kill your targets, a lot of which are funny "accidental deaths". Or you can always just put a bomb in a cake and give it to a fat guy, if you feel like being less creative.
The biggest criticism I would have for the game is that it offers little use of non-concealable weapons, yet provides you with them anyways.
 
ríomhaire said:
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories - Great
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Good to hear, I've been thinking of picking that up.

The Ball 7.5/10

This is a great game in quite a lot of ways. It reminded me a lot of Portal, as it has a very minimalist storytelling style, hinges a great deal of its meaning on your relationship with an inanimate object, immerses you in the gameplay very gradually, and is essentially a puzzle platformer adventure where both the puzzles and the platforming are easy enough that curiosity is really what drives you forward. It opens with you falling into a cave, your friend yelling down that it's going to be a while before he can help you up, and you discovering the ruins of a hyper advanced ancient civilization.

The gameplay is simple and fun. The puzzles are never frustrating and are more typically a question of exploration and experimentation than deep thought, but your reliance on the Ball is so interesting. The premise is essentially that you have a gravity gun device that can only attract and deflect a giant metallic spherical artifact, which controls and grants access deeper into the civilization. Ball + Magnet. The game tries to get actiony at points, and this works to okay (but the heavily foreshadowed giant gorilla battle is terrible), but the key is really going deeper and deeper into these beautiful and visually varied underground temples. There is a story here, but I don't understand it. At the start of each of the about seven parts is a giant tablet that gives a cryptic history of the civilization and the construction of this place, but I never really understood it.
I thought it had something to do with monkeys (because there's monkeys everywhere), but apparently it has something do with aliens. Who enslaved and helped who I never really understood. Long story short though, the tablets say that some sort of Armageddon will happen when the Ball reaches the heart of this place, which is what you eventually do. When you do, the platform you're standing on floats up (it's a flying saucer!!!11!), deposits you where you started the game, just in time to be rescued, and the ufo flies away. So, Armageddon? I don't know.
But what's really great is how authentic and expansive these ruins feel. I felt like I was truly exploring a fascinating and incredible civilization with all the little artifacts, chambers, and vistas.

But a silly ending, forced action sequences, and some silly problems aside, this is a very good and unique game that provides a pretty immersive and enjoyable experience.
 
Singularity 8.5/10

Very fun game that didn't really pull me into till about 1 or 2 hrs in. After you start leveling up your powers it gets more fun. TBH I think this has more environmental puzzles than Half Life but its cool. I still liked the characters, the story was simple to follow and the setting was awesome. One thing I hated was hearing all the Russian enemies scream at me, it drove me insane because it was repetitive. Otherwise this was a great game

Also this the 1st out of 10 games I want to finish in my collection before I buy any other games. I would like help guys so kick my ass if I buy any more without finishing 10 of them!
 
Clive Barker's Jericho - ???/10

All I can say is, what the **** is this?
 
Portal Still Alive 9/10

Second playthrough, 1st was on PC, second time was the XBL arcade Title Portal:Still Alive, essentially I got faster at the puzzle solving (capt obvious statement) but it was still enjoyable the second time around. This is the second game out of ten that I will be playing in order to finish up my half finished stack before I buy a new one. Still working on Red Dead Redemption, Kameo, Metro 33, and tons more
 
Magicka- 7/10

Really likeable game. Fun and original concept, creativity, humorous, challenging. Unfortunately there's a bunch of glitches and things that make it frustrating to play and I can't find anyone online to play with. After all, I gave it a high score because it's a lot of fun and that's the most important thing for a game.
 
FarCry (it's my second time) - 6/10

-is a solid, challenging shooter
-huge levels
-visuals
-ai (it's pretty good)

-too long for it's own good
-terribly placed checkpoints, no quicksave feature
-can be very frustating
-mutants
-cheesy, b-movie story and characters
-major game design mistakes
-goes from easy, to hard, then gets back to easy
-some levels are bland, plain, boring corridors
-ai (it can get crazy)

final opinion: it's little better than cauldron's chaser. it's a fun experience if you like the genre.
 
Sheepo said:
Mario Kart 64 and Golden Eye 64 8/10

Very few things are as fun to play with friends. Goddamn fun tournaments.
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Interesting scores. I had some friends that might have agreed with you on Mario Kart. I will give you my rating for those games as I would have back in 1996/1997

Mario Kart 64: 4/10 - A major disappointment after the really slick SNES version. Well, maybe that was a lot of nostalgia.
Golden Eye 007 [N64]: 10/10 - I bought a N64 for this game. We used to play this 4 player for countless hours, for months on end.

And now, for something amusing, I will rate these games in 2011.

Mario Kart 64: 6/10
Golden Eye 007 [N64]: 7/10

Finally, I will rate them according to how much I want to play them ever again:

Mario Kart 64: 0/10
Golden Eye 007 [N64]: 1/10
 
Barnz said:
FarCry (it's my second time) - 6/10

-is a solid, challenging shooter
-huge levels
-visuals
-ai (it's pretty good)

-too long for it's own good
-terribly placed checkpoints, no quicksave feature
-can be very frustating
-mutants
-cheesy, b-movie story and characters
-major game design mistakes
-goes from easy, to hard, then gets back to easy
-some levels are bland, plain, boring corridors
-ai (it can get crazy)

final opinion: it's little better than cauldron's chaser. it's a fun experience if you like the genre.
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Very much agree with this. One other thing I feel the need to mention as a massive plus is the fire and foliage systems. Foliage was just pretty, but fire actually became a really useful way to clear out large groups of enemies hiding in the grass. I wish more games had that.
 
The best and probably most underrated N64 game is Waverace 64, one of the best games ever made.

My 1996 score would be 10/10. It's a really fun and challenging game, with incredible water physics and beautiful, colorful and fun graphics. You can easily look past the blocky polygons of the riders, once you see it in motion. The analog stick of the N64 is perfect here. Another nice touch is the fact that you can adjust the water dynamics, for example creating really high waves, or calm ones, and that goes for any stage. In addition, you can adjust each selectable watercraft with attributes like acceleration and top speed, and you can even change the color schemes of the riders and their craft. These are features you don't often see in a game.

This game is perfect for all ages.

Now, in 2011, I would give the game a 9/10 and still recommend it. You could also get the newer version for the Gamecube. I won't review that one because I haven't played it enough, but it seems to be even better in some respects, at least.
 
Wanted Bob said:
Very much agree with this. One other thing I feel the need to mention as a massive plus is the fire and foliage systems. Foliage was just pretty, but fire actually became a really useful way to clear out large groups of enemies hiding in the grass. I wish more games had that.
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I'm pretty sure he was reviewing the first Far Cry.

I wish there were more games like Far Cry, if it only had a little more love put into it(ie a team that is not only very good at programming but also understands the design side of a game) the concept would have worked really well.
Other than Minecraft, I can't think of a game that did non-scripted action better than Far Cry.
 
Dinnesch said:
I'm pretty sure he was reviewing the first Far Cry.

I wish there were more games like Far Cry, if it only had a little more love put into it(ie a team that is not only very good at programming but also understands the design side of a game) the concept would have worked really well.
Other than Minecraft, I can't think of a game that did non-scripted action better than Far Cry.
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Ha, whoops, I thought he said Far Cry (the second one). Yeah, I agree that Far Cry has some really strong points only brought down by lackluster gameplay choices.
 
KOTOR 2 again: started up a KOTOR 2 game after a couple years. It's...interesting. The story is way more complex than the first game which isn't really a good or bad thing, but I just wish all the story lines would conclude. I decided on darkside male but I realized that it gets a little more interesting if you don't just pick the "I'll kill you!" options. I'm more of a power-hungry disturbed veteran. Anyway, the character interaction while trying to maintain my own character is difficult. I forgot how great the party members are. I'm actual torn about whether to turn to the light side because my companions are worried about me.

Excellent story, interesting though not so exciting combat, good puzzles, etc. 8/10
 
yea i really enjoyed kotor 2 i've never understood the hate for it (except its piss curdingly awful ending mind).

Aint posted in this topic for a while so i'll go for a quick recap of the highlights that i can remember since last time ;)

Medal of Honor: Standard FPS fare nowadays altho i still appreciated its somewhat more serious tone. I felt it was treated too harshly compared to BLOPS considering its the same game essentially. They share the same faults yet in a reviewers eyes BLOPS is bloody infallible -_-

Black Ops: Again standard FPS fare really. Enjoyable nonetheless and definitely better than MW2 (I could follow the plot at least this time :p)

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood: Same as AC2 really but much bigger in terms of content.

VVVVVV: Bloody loved this game!! Soo much fun and a DAMN good soundtrack to boot.

Super Meat Boy: Awesome and HARD! Still working my way through cotton alley and the dr fetus boss took me about a week to do =/

Castlevania Lords of Shadow: A kinda rough game in terms of its core gameplay but defintiely enjoyable. The story was pretty good on the whole I felt and definitely made me find this the better game than that crap for a plot in god of war 3 -_-
Also the ending? ZOMG! I saw parts of it coming but not the big bit after the credits :O

Maybe a little too long but I dont get to say that very much nowadays so i wont complain much about that :p

Vanquish: I really LOVED the demo for this but I admit I am a little disappointed given how hyped i was after the amazing demo. The game mechanically is bloody brilliant but it never does mix it up through the game, it really just progresses as celar out a room and move on to the next one until the level is over. Not a big issue in a game like this but the plot was crap too (twist at the end doesnt really make much sense o_O) but still a really damn good game mind.

Dead Space 2: better than the first but still in the same tier imo with no real major improvements. Also falls into the same problem as the original by seeming to just rush you with enemies towards the end chapters leading to what can be quite a frustrating experience. I made it through on normal but had to switch down to easy for the last boss due to aforementioned enemy chokepoints leaving me low on supplies =s

it's a good enough action survival game but not great and definitely not scary :|

Red Dead Redemption Undead Nightmare: basically just a more linear and quite short zombified twist to RDR. You liked RDR you'll like this.
Still didnt change my mind on it as being one of the most overrated games this gen imo =/
 
KOTOR 1 V. KOTOR 2

Both very enjoyable games. The gameplay is basically the same with a few improvements in 2, but of course the main appeal is the story, characters, and atmosphere. If I was rating just those things I'd give them about the same score because they both have certain strengths and weaknesses:

1 has a much simpler, easy to follow story with simpler but still dynamic characters. I was always able to follow the story more easily without getting confused and since I was like 13 when I played them both, my first playthrough of 1 was more enjoyable than my playthrough of 2. Either way, it's more accessible because all loose ends get tied up and you can delve deeper into your party members' characters only if you want. There are no holes in the plot.

2 added a lot to the party characters with the "influence" system. I love it, though it's a little shaky. For example, if you do something you can effect influence for one character but not another. Also I get pissed because turning your characters into jedi basically does nothing to the story. Another headache is that by the end, you don't necessarily know everything you're supposed to. There are many questions left unanswered. I've played through it many times and I'm still not totally sure what all is going on. I think it's mainly due to the rush to release the game because I read that a lot of the cut content goes deeper into interactions between characters and developing the story but it's not there, now.

This is why it's such a shame that KOTOR 3 was canceled. Improvements were clearly made over 1 in terms of immersion and interaction and if a third game was made, some of the annoying things about 2 could be fixed and some of the plot details filled in. It's such a disappointment.
Wall o' text.

Edit: I haven't played Mass Effect, but from what I've seen, it seems to have a similar party system with better ways to explore the characters. Does someone want to explain the improvements to me?
 
PorkPi said:
KOTOR 1 V. KOTOR 2

Both very enjoyable games. The gameplay is basically the same with a few improvements in 2, but of course the main appeal is the story, characters, and atmosphere. If I was rating just those things I'd give them about the same score because they both have certain strengths and weaknesses:

1 has a much simpler, easy to follow story with simpler but still dynamic characters. I was always able to follow the story more easily without getting confused and since I was like 13 when I played them both, my first playthrough of 1 was more enjoyable than my playthrough of 2. Either way, it's more accessible because all loose ends get tied up and you can delve deeper into your party members' characters only if you want. There are no holes in the plot.

2 added a lot to the party characters with the "influence" system. I love it, though it's a little shaky. For example, if you do something you can effect influence for one character but not another. Also I get pissed because turning your characters into jedi basically does nothing to the story. Another headache is that by the end, you don't necessarily know everything you're supposed to. There are many questions left unanswered. I've played through it many times and I'm still not totally sure what all is going on. I think it's mainly due to the rush to release the game because I read that a lot of the cut content goes deeper into interactions between characters and developing the story but it's not there, now.

This is why it's such a shame that KOTOR 3 was canceled. Improvements were clearly made over 1 in terms of immersion and interaction and if a third game was made, some of the annoying things about 2 could be fixed and some of the plot details filled in. It's such a disappointment.
Wall o' text.
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KOTOR 2 suffered heavily from deadline constraints and the game was not finished on release as a result of that, hence the loose ends you complained about. It's a shame it turned out that way, because as it is, it's already better than KOTOR 1 imo. I can't even imagine how amazing it would've been if it had been finished.

The originally planned ending would have provided in-game fates - and in many cases, deaths - for all of the characters who travel with the main player character. In-game, the game ends with Darth Traya revealing the party member's futures. By explaining their futures, instead of showing the events leading up to the finale, it leaves just what happened to the designers of KOTOR III.
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That said, a mod that restores a lot of the cut content has already been released. I haven't tried it myself yet, but from what I've heard, it's worth checking out.
 
Halo 3 ODST- 6/10 - Bungies long standing business strategy of never designing a level that you cant trek across at least 4 times in various stages of deconstruction or nighttime vs daytime alterations reaches its highest level of art. The game is pretty creepy with the abandoned and recently wartorn city from Halo 2 as the setting. Its pretty effective especially when you are given the opportunity to avoid a wandering squad of stranded Covenant or fire on them just to have a bunch that were loitering in the alley behind you come to investigate upping the difficulty enormously( no shields in this game and it is stingy with health). Would have liked less flashback scenes but they had to shoehorn vehicle combat in somehow, the after battle parts are where this differentiates itself and excels though, it should have stuck with it

Dragon Quest IX- 4/10- Wow THIS is what everyone was raving about? It only stands as an example of childishness with an audience that im going to go out on a limb and say are NOT children anymore. Not a single morally challenging or mentally taxing moment in the whole game with even the final boss not being killed or even really thwarted but giving a big old "im sowwy" and reverting to the status quo.

The combat is outdated, the menu system it employs being something so easily fixed but kept the same for reasons im sure not even they understand. Its biggest problem is that once you issue commands, you issue them to the whole party before the enemy attacks and cant retract them. For example, if you tell your priest to heal a character with a scratch but then the enemy heavily wounds your wizard, your priest will blithely heal the one with the booboo even if his turn comes after the monsters. So then you are left in the next turn trying to heal your wizard before it can hit her again which is a problem since the lazy **** only has a turn at the end of the round, which would be perfect if you could issue orders individually.

The fights were boring with all of them being approached the same way by me since every stinking monster was immune to status ailments or recovered instantly making it pointless so i just kafrizzed, raised tension, kabuffed , hit with raised tension and repeated unless I felt the need to cast reflect which the dumbass enemy always fell for.

The random dungeons were touted as enhancing the replayability to a hundred hours but they are terrible. They are boring with no unique or rare items for at least a dozen dungeons( when i stopped) they even repeat the bosses at the end, im not even sure if theyre enhanced at all. It is shameless and there are RPGs, even JRPGs, pushing the envelope, this isnt one
 
Dead Space 2 - 9/10

I'm always going to have a biased view on these games anyway as I just love the whole Dead Space universe that the game occupy. When they announced the sequel was going to be more action orientated I had serious concerns that they were going to change the style of the game to please the mainstream audience, and while it does have a lot more set pieces and big moment scenes It's business as usual for Visceral. Some have said the game is not scary at all, but that was not true for me. The bits with the baby's and kids were definitely unsettling and the bit in the casini towers and the Unitolgy Church all made me want to get the hell out of them as soon as I could. Yes, it does rely somewhat on jumping scares but when you're effected by that kind of scare then it makes it a scary game. The controls seemed to be a lot tighter this time around and while not a massive improvement, the visuals received a bit more love too. I'm looking forward to the next instalment (as long as they decide to bring it to the PC).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Frubq-zpmgo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeYHesfPdwY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y4ao-Lt1FI

Bulletstorm - 6.5/10

I've marked this game lower due to the technical bugs that I had to use workarounds to overcome before I could actually enjoy the game. From having to hack the protected .ini files to increase the pool size and streaming options to having to create a 16:10 resolution dividable by 4 to get the bugged resolutions to work correctly are all things that should have been caught in testing.
Anyway, the game itself is a decent enough shooter with a little over the top action and macho humour. The UE3 looks nice in outside bright environments but falls into the "brown" trap when the game shifts to indoor or underground environments. I also felt that after all the promo vids showing "kill with skill" that the game doesn't actually give you enough opportunity's to do this over the course of the game.
The story is also something the game could do without as it seems barely functional to get you to the action, but they seem insistent on putting in cut scenes when all you want to be doing is killing shit. You're robot sidekick is also one of the least likeable sidekicks in gaming.
Maybe they'll do more with the inevitable sequel based on the shitty, unresolved pointless ending.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OjZNBGxdtQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aO-4H8R7ub4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtWc2yj2XJw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO4wmN3PW8Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_QAGTsoFRw
 
Deadly Premonition:

At first I quite honestly hated this game and had to take an extended break from it. I'm glad I did though as coming back to it it's bloody awesome :D

The problem with the game is that the game part of it is what brings it down. The map for driving is unintuitive and the combat is awful. So yea i was glad i took the long break from the game.

But yeah as people do say the game does really suck you in though and by the end of the game i was bloody loving it :D
Not really because you can say the story is good in any objective sense or anything but it was engaging and i actually kinda cared about what would happen to york and others towards the end.

PS: totally called it for the identity of the killer :p
 
stemot said:
"kill with skill"
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Most disappointing game feature of the past six months. Absurdly limited, hazily monotonous and completely nondynamic.

On the plus side, the story is pretty good for a videogame, and the setpieces are awe-inducing.

Bulletstorm - 6/10

Oh, and while I'm at it: I really, really dislike BC2 Vietnam. It's just awful. The maps are crap. BC2 only "works" as a game when infantry have some semblance of a close-quarters environment to keep out of sight of snipers and vehicles. Vietnam lacks this in almost every capacity. Sure, you can sneak around in the bushes, but they don't block enemy fire. Hell, they don't even stand up to a single grenade. So you've got five maps with no concrete, wide-open plains, and an almost total lack of useful height variation/cover, and what do you get? A chaotic bloodbath whose course is completely dictated by snipers and explosives, all but invariably resulting in one team steamrolling the other into their spawn choke faster than the Americans get grenade spawnspammed in BF2's Karkand.

Battlefield Bad Company 2: Vietnam - 3/10

And for comparison's sake:

Battlefield Bad Company 2 - 9.5/10
 
Dead Space 2: 8/10
Gameplay wise, an all round improvement from the original, as we were expecting. The weapons are a lot more fun, the scares are a lot less reliant on cheap tactics than the original and there's just a lot of polishing. In terms of location design, they did a phenomenal job here. Plenty of neat ideas without compromising the 'industrial space complex' core of the series. The seventh chapter was a particular stand-out for me, tempted to mention it in the same breath as 'Shalebridge Cradle' and 'Surface Tension', but it lacked a lot of the subtly of the former, and wasn't quite as badass as the later. Still, it's a cracking locale, visually and atmospherically exciting. Oh, and they even did a pretty good job of
dusting off the Ishimura and making it at first very tense, then just generally fun
But... I still don't care about what's going on in the Dead Space universe, and I don't understand how anyone could. The over-arching plot of 'chase down the bad guy military space megalomaniac: he's the bad guy' is possibly the least original thing in the series so far, and that's saying something. The Unitologists remain massively underdeveloped (basically, they're still a quarter-hearted stab at Scientology. Yeah, the creative director has denied it). The science fiction world of Dead Space just seems to lack any kind of theme or even basic presence in the game. Space and technology are just things that facilitate the gameplay, and it leaves the universe feeling very empty indeed. It doesn't help that we're given the slightest slither of a tease of how it's all going to develop and it amounts to 'there are more markers'. Which is shit no matter how you slice it.

Though I absolutely adore the Half-Life-like progression through the story (there's only one 'cut away' in the game really), it still feels like they mashed together several different story ideas, unsure what the focus was. Where is Unitology in the last two thirds of the game? And if we're lumbered with the rubbish main villain, why does he pop up only every two hours or so for most of the first two thirds? Visceral have crafted a game that - in the moment - is a pretty gripping horror experience. But you're shitting me if you honestly think they know what to do with the bigger picture.

Finally, Dead Space 2 has officially killed off the 'hoodie wearing female sidekick' character trope, as if it wasn't pretty much dead on arrival seven years ago. The ferocity of the fighting, the regularity of being ripped limb from limb and the easy availability of armour freaking everywhere (you'll have at least four spare suits by the end of the game) just made me instantly dislike the character. Unoriginal and exploitative all while seemingly thinking that it's making an interesting, strong female character. **** off.
 
kupocake said:
But... I still don't care about what's going on in the Dead Space universe, and I don't understand how anyone could. The over-arching plot of 'chase down the bad guy military space megalomaniac: he's the bad guy' is possibly the least original thing in the series so far, and that's saying something.
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This is not the over-arching plot though and never was in DS2.
They were never actually going after Teidemann, he just happened to be in the same place as what they were going after, which was the Marker. This is the reason why he is never really focused on as much as the Marker psychological effects on Isaac or Stross. The main over arching plot is Isaacs dementia at the hands of the Marker and his battle to overcome it. If however by 2over-arching plot" you're talking about the series as a whole then again, it's not the pursuit of a single man but the understanding and intentions of the alien markers.
I really don't see how you could have been under the impression that was the main objective at any point in the game, unless you're talking about a different bad guy and even if you are, none of them come before Isaac's main reasons for pressing on.
 
The fact of the matter is that Teidemann is in possession of the marker and he's the first identifiable antagonist in the game. He doesn't 'just happen to be in the same place'. Yes, he's controlled by the marker, but he exists as a surrogate antagonist because the marker just sits there. Obviously. 'Over-arching plot' was probably the wrong phrasing, since it implies it's the only thread throughout the game. But it's undeniably the only thing unique to the sequel, that sets it apart from the (not especially well explored) arc of the series that you mention.

Perhaps I'm more irked that he exists at all. He's just there to articulate some banal point about the marker we've heard already, and he's there persistently.
 
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