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Review Alpha Protocol Reviewed
- Thread starter Jason
- Start date
Black Cat
Magister
@ Phelot
* A wild Fangirl Neko appears! *
Devil Survivor doesn't has that problem, since it happens in modern day Tokyo and most characters look like normal people who just got caught in the lockdown.
Totally hot and romantic Gin.
Gangster Kaido.
Nerdy Keisuke.
Foxy emo Haru.
Retarded Yuzu.
Geeky what his face.
That empty shell known as The Main Character.
There are others, but those are the main ones so the rest are just dressed even more like normal people: Drones in suits, police guys, soldiers, a nurse, etc. Though there are some who are kind of weird, though one is cosplaying and the other two are really weird people with really weird backstories.
Cosplaying camgirl Midori.
Crazy mystic Amane.
Totally hot and mysterious Naoya.
You should try it, if you are into stories and plotlines that change as you do thingies and stuffies, as well as some pretty hardcore and cool gameplay. It runs really well in Desmume 0.9.4, and being a DS game is a really fast download. :ninjacat:
And don't tell them i told you, but it has more meaninful Choice And Consequence than most games mentioned around here. * hush! *
* A wild Fangirl Neko appears! *
Devil Survivor doesn't has that problem, since it happens in modern day Tokyo and most characters look like normal people who just got caught in the lockdown.
Totally hot and romantic Gin.
Gangster Kaido.
Nerdy Keisuke.
Foxy emo Haru.
Retarded Yuzu.
Geeky what his face.
That empty shell known as The Main Character.
There are others, but those are the main ones so the rest are just dressed even more like normal people: Drones in suits, police guys, soldiers, a nurse, etc. Though there are some who are kind of weird, though one is cosplaying and the other two are really weird people with really weird backstories.
Cosplaying camgirl Midori.
Crazy mystic Amane.
Totally hot and mysterious Naoya.
You should try it, if you are into stories and plotlines that change as you do thingies and stuffies, as well as some pretty hardcore and cool gameplay. It runs really well in Desmume 0.9.4, and being a DS game is a really fast download. :ninjacat:
And don't tell them i told you, but it has more meaninful Choice And Consequence than most games mentioned around here. * hush! *
circ
Arcane
OH OH THANKS FOR TURNING ANOTHER THREAD INTO ANIME FAGGOTRY. FAGGOTS. GODDAMMIT YOU FUCKS.
Black Cat
Magister
All your thread are belong to us.
forgotmypasswordagain
Educated
- Joined
- Dec 1, 2009
- Messages
- 178
Grunker said:
i am sorry grunker but come on man
you know how this is going to turn out. you have to know by now, you just have to.
GarfunkeL
Racism Expert
It's the same shit as before the release of F3 and Oblivion. "YOU CAN'T JUDGE THE GAME BY JUST PREVIEWS" oh well, yes we can. "OKAY BUT YOU CAN'T JUDGE THE GAME WITHOUT PLAYING IT FOR 100 HOURS" oh well, yes we can, it's shitty shit shit shit and that's it.
roll-a-die
Magister
- Joined
- Sep 27, 2009
- Messages
- 3,131
That and the hype is the same as Dragon Age's. That alone causes reason for doubt to me. I still am of the opinion that all things are decent until proven otherwise.
Black Cat
Magister
And the review actually reads more like a preview, without going almost nothing in particulars and filling more than half it's length with screenshots. It smells of, like, I played two hours and went with the hype.
Carlos' Bitch1
Arcane
Black Cat said:All your thread are belong to us.
Unless you have finished Deathlord though, you don't know what difficult is. Let me know once you have completed it. Without any help.
As for this thread, same old Codex getting excited over something that has yet to be played by trusted sources. I will wait for the intelligentsia to report back first.
The Wizard
Educated
seriously? i like devil survivor, but its c&c™ was horrible. the only way to navigate into an ending you like is by playing it over and over and over because the consequences to your choices are sometimes so fucking outlandish and unrelated that you can not help but introduce your forehead to your palm.Black Cat said:
gin? naoya? what the fuck? you will bow before lok-i mean gigolo.
@La Chatte Noire
Meh. Why do I always have to do this?
So a game is only a test of skill and only when it reaches a certain point in difficulty. Besides the fact that the concept of game is grounded in escapism and pastime, how does one go about accurately measuring the level of difficulty it must achieve to be considered a game, keeping in mind that not all people will experience it the same way? It's a rather ridiculous and gratuitous claim.
Debating the quality of a game based on its difficulty is more productive, but that still won't change its nature. Now it's true that Deus Ex isn't particularly hard even at the highest difficulty setting if you rely mostly on stealth, thanks in no small part to the rather poor AI and basic stealth mechanics, and this is made even easier if you benefit from meta-knowledge. That said difficulty depends also on your playstyle, since (ab)using the quicksave/load feature removes a good chunk of difficulty of any game, and I think that if you try to play "fair" you will likely need a good deal of planning and timing until you can add some safety nets by developping some skills and augmentations later in the game.
Just as other have said, I do not think that DX is known for its punishing difficulty but for the amount of options given to the player to accomplish the objectives, far above what you can typically find in most shooters or RPG, coupled to the possibility to customise your character to further support your chosen playstyle.
The rather obvious point is that you can approach objectives in many different ways. The different elements could have been better, true, but they are not as bad as you make them sound and in DX they are mostly a mean to support the overarching design and not an end in itself. Taken as a straight shooter, DX is indeed mediocre though I have played seriously worse shooters than that, but fortunately it isn't a straight shooter. You want a stealth game? I recommend the Thief serie. A shooter? The genre is overpopulated yet there are a few good ones. But if you fancy a game that lets you complete objectives by brute strenght or in more subtle ways (and for each these the means may vary) while exploring big levels, it's hard to beat DX.
Not so fast. I dislike the term of LARP when talking of video games but I guess that it has its purpose. Anyway it is mostly used in reference to acts of make-believe from the player part, like when some moron plays Oblivion and pretends to be a cannibal by sitting next to a corpse for 10 minutes or carrying meat in a basket and pretent it is human meat. In this case there is zero response from the game because it wasn't made to react in that way and it all takes place in the shallow and deranged mind of the player. DX has quite a few responses to actions a player may do, and while they might be mostly flavour they still effectively do the job of showing the player that the world is reacting to him. Of course it is scripted in advance and contributes only to the illusion that the world is reacting to your actions, but it definitely helps to suspend disbelief. That kind of thing is not LARP but attention to detail from the developpers, something that is sadly going the way of extinction. Killing the guard that comes to relieve you when you complete Liberty Island won't change the game at all and only provide some more lines when you report to Manderley, but not everything should have a deep impact and the important part is that the game acknowledges that you did something stupid like that while a more recent game would have made the character invincible and oblivious to your hostile actions. DX is filled of little details like that that help to shape the game and give it a unique identity.
Sure it's nice if your choices, sometimes determined by your direct actions in the game rather than some dialog choice, have a great impact on how the game proceeds later, but then again it's not like it has to or that every choice should have a significant impact — some limited choices in DX may have an impact later by determining the kind of reward you will receive, if at all, or the number of options you may have to deal with a certain situation. If anything, flavour stuff like saving Paul helps to flesh him out and give him some importance in the story — and no, the story shouldn't take precedence over the gameplay but serve it, and that's what it does in this game.
One thing that shouldn't be forgotten is that DX is a game from 2000, which makes it a decade old — a word en vogue lately. Some contemporary games looked much better (some areas, like Hong Kong, still look pretty good though), had better AI, shooting or stealth mechanics, etc., but few offered big and varied levels like DX, designed to let the player pick one way out of several to complete it.
And the problem is that since 2000, DX is still pretty much at the top of a genre that counts very little games. It is highly regarded here not just because it aged rather well all things considered but because no one cared to make a better game. We got a mediocre sequel — not as bad as the common opinion claims but certainly not strong enough to fill its predecessor's shoes; Bloodlines that was more RPGish and did some things better in that regard and others worse, especially when it comes to level design, and I think that's about it; maybe Arx Fatalis but it was more of a dungeon crawler and did not have the same scope; Fallout 3? That one is mainly a action focused shooter, though also with light RPG elements, and certainly not the same depth of vision.
I'm sure that no one here (no one who is still sane that is) would claim that DX is perfect and the best game ever. There is a lot that could be improved on and refined but its core design is simply great and it would be lovely to see talented developpers pick up on DX accomplishments and create something new from them while avoiding its mistakes — it even feels quite experimental at times, something that not many of the big boys dare to do these days — but is it going to happen? I don't think so. It's as if we had been stuck with Shakespeare all this time, who despite being a great playwright was still stuck with melodrama, and had no Ibsen, Shaw or O'Neill to improve upon his legacy. That's how sad it is.
Meh. Why do I always have to do this?
Black Cat said:
So a game is only a test of skill and only when it reaches a certain point in difficulty. Besides the fact that the concept of game is grounded in escapism and pastime, how does one go about accurately measuring the level of difficulty it must achieve to be considered a game, keeping in mind that not all people will experience it the same way? It's a rather ridiculous and gratuitous claim.
Debating the quality of a game based on its difficulty is more productive, but that still won't change its nature. Now it's true that Deus Ex isn't particularly hard even at the highest difficulty setting if you rely mostly on stealth, thanks in no small part to the rather poor AI and basic stealth mechanics, and this is made even easier if you benefit from meta-knowledge. That said difficulty depends also on your playstyle, since (ab)using the quicksave/load feature removes a good chunk of difficulty of any game, and I think that if you try to play "fair" you will likely need a good deal of planning and timing until you can add some safety nets by developping some skills and augmentations later in the game.
Just as other have said, I do not think that DX is known for its punishing difficulty but for the amount of options given to the player to accomplish the objectives, far above what you can typically find in most shooters or RPG, coupled to the possibility to customise your character to further support your chosen playstyle.
Black Cat said:
The rather obvious point is that you can approach objectives in many different ways. The different elements could have been better, true, but they are not as bad as you make them sound and in DX they are mostly a mean to support the overarching design and not an end in itself. Taken as a straight shooter, DX is indeed mediocre though I have played seriously worse shooters than that, but fortunately it isn't a straight shooter. You want a stealth game? I recommend the Thief serie. A shooter? The genre is overpopulated yet there are a few good ones. But if you fancy a game that lets you complete objectives by brute strenght or in more subtle ways (and for each these the means may vary) while exploring big levels, it's hard to beat DX.
Black Cat said:
Not so fast. I dislike the term of LARP when talking of video games but I guess that it has its purpose. Anyway it is mostly used in reference to acts of make-believe from the player part, like when some moron plays Oblivion and pretends to be a cannibal by sitting next to a corpse for 10 minutes or carrying meat in a basket and pretent it is human meat. In this case there is zero response from the game because it wasn't made to react in that way and it all takes place in the shallow and deranged mind of the player. DX has quite a few responses to actions a player may do, and while they might be mostly flavour they still effectively do the job of showing the player that the world is reacting to him. Of course it is scripted in advance and contributes only to the illusion that the world is reacting to your actions, but it definitely helps to suspend disbelief. That kind of thing is not LARP but attention to detail from the developpers, something that is sadly going the way of extinction. Killing the guard that comes to relieve you when you complete Liberty Island won't change the game at all and only provide some more lines when you report to Manderley, but not everything should have a deep impact and the important part is that the game acknowledges that you did something stupid like that while a more recent game would have made the character invincible and oblivious to your hostile actions. DX is filled of little details like that that help to shape the game and give it a unique identity.
Sure it's nice if your choices, sometimes determined by your direct actions in the game rather than some dialog choice, have a great impact on how the game proceeds later, but then again it's not like it has to or that every choice should have a significant impact — some limited choices in DX may have an impact later by determining the kind of reward you will receive, if at all, or the number of options you may have to deal with a certain situation. If anything, flavour stuff like saving Paul helps to flesh him out and give him some importance in the story — and no, the story shouldn't take precedence over the gameplay but serve it, and that's what it does in this game.
Black Cat said:
One thing that shouldn't be forgotten is that DX is a game from 2000, which makes it a decade old — a word en vogue lately. Some contemporary games looked much better (some areas, like Hong Kong, still look pretty good though), had better AI, shooting or stealth mechanics, etc., but few offered big and varied levels like DX, designed to let the player pick one way out of several to complete it.
And the problem is that since 2000, DX is still pretty much at the top of a genre that counts very little games. It is highly regarded here not just because it aged rather well all things considered but because no one cared to make a better game. We got a mediocre sequel — not as bad as the common opinion claims but certainly not strong enough to fill its predecessor's shoes; Bloodlines that was more RPGish and did some things better in that regard and others worse, especially when it comes to level design, and I think that's about it; maybe Arx Fatalis but it was more of a dungeon crawler and did not have the same scope; Fallout 3? That one is mainly a action focused shooter, though also with light RPG elements, and certainly not the same depth of vision.
I'm sure that no one here (no one who is still sane that is) would claim that DX is perfect and the best game ever. There is a lot that could be improved on and refined but its core design is simply great and it would be lovely to see talented developpers pick up on DX accomplishments and create something new from them while avoiding its mistakes — it even feels quite experimental at times, something that not many of the big boys dare to do these days — but is it going to happen? I don't think so. It's as if we had been stuck with Shakespeare all this time, who despite being a great playwright was still stuck with melodrama, and had no Ibsen, Shaw or O'Neill to improve upon his legacy. That's how sad it is.
Black Cat
Magister
@ Blackadder
"Deathlord"
I stand before a true warrior of Fair Codexia! :shock: That's way beyond my league, honestly. x3
@ The Wizard
But Gin is manly, and sensible without being Emo, and classy, and tough as nails, and all at the same time. That alone makes him something truly unique in japanese games. And He fights against everyone else, heaven and hell and everything in between... For love! :3
*many squeees were squeee'd, dreamy look in her eyes*
And honestly, were you not hoping for a bit of, like, intimate healing and, like, brotherly rites between the Main Character and Naoya after understanding what was going on between them and and finally understanding all those sexy vibes flowing from the DS every time both were together in a screen? x3
*Ahem*
In any case, I saw Devil Survivor's C&C tree as pretty cool, actually. It is not that the choices are unrelated, it is that many times you don't have an idea of why they are related or in which way they are related if you did not follow some precise set of events beforehand or are using the Metagaming Sight spell, but that's pretty common in some Codex approved games like, say, The Twitcher, which commits all the same sins while having not nearly as many choices or long lasting consequences for them or freedom in how to move the story as Devil Survivor does. Nor the actually challenging and interesting gameplay, but that's another story.
And note i was using the C&C as in part of the gameplay and the challenge, as it is in a visual novel, not as just a narrative element. I personally kind of loved it, though I really accept making you-know-who's death break the entire game without you having any way of knowing what caused it even after it happened is kind of really evil.
I have seen faaaar worse, though. Like in Yo Jin Bo were...
Nothing in Devil Survivor is as evil or ilogical as that. Nothing.
Edity Edit: Holy Toebitting Ferrets, Batman! :shock: Give a second to read the mustelid textwall that appeared while i wrote the other post.
"Deathlord"
I stand before a true warrior of Fair Codexia! :shock: That's way beyond my league, honestly. x3
@ The Wizard
But Gin is manly, and sensible without being Emo, and classy, and tough as nails, and all at the same time. That alone makes him something truly unique in japanese games. And He fights against everyone else, heaven and hell and everything in between... For love! :3
*many squeees were squeee'd, dreamy look in her eyes*
And honestly, were you not hoping for a bit of, like, intimate healing and, like, brotherly rites between the Main Character and Naoya after understanding what was going on between them and and finally understanding all those sexy vibes flowing from the DS every time both were together in a screen? x3
*Ahem*
In any case, I saw Devil Survivor's C&C tree as pretty cool, actually. It is not that the choices are unrelated, it is that many times you don't have an idea of why they are related or in which way they are related if you did not follow some precise set of events beforehand or are using the Metagaming Sight spell, but that's pretty common in some Codex approved games like, say, The Twitcher, which commits all the same sins while having not nearly as many choices or long lasting consequences for them or freedom in how to move the story as Devil Survivor does. Nor the actually challenging and interesting gameplay, but that's another story.
And note i was using the C&C as in part of the gameplay and the challenge, as it is in a visual novel, not as just a narrative element. I personally kind of loved it, though I really accept making you-know-who's death break the entire game without you having any way of knowing what caused it even after it happened is kind of really evil.
I have seen faaaar worse, though. Like in Yo Jin Bo were...
...if you don't take a peek at one of the three teams of guys bathing naked in the hot springs during the corresponding chapter the game will become impossible to win as later on, when having to pick wich team will protect you while the two other teams serve as bait and sacrifices to the enemy army, the game decides you still haven't made your mind up about what guy you have the hots for and as such your character will not, regardless of what option you pick, decide quick enough as for the enemies to not catch up with you and slaughter you all.
Nothing in Devil Survivor is as evil or ilogical as that. Nothing.
Edity Edit: Holy Toebitting Ferrets, Batman! :shock: Give a second to read the mustelid textwall that appeared while i wrote the other post.
fastpunk
Arbiter
Black Cat said:
Thanks for the translation. It's a pretty poor review to be honest; feels more like a preview. I'm not sure these guys played the whole game. Also, complaining about lack of MP? Weird.
Black Cat
Magister
@ Le Petit Furet
"So a game is only a test of skill"
A videogame is only a test of skill, yes. It may have other virtues, and I do not have anything against mood or plot or interaction, but just as long as they become part of the gameplay, or a companion to the gameplay. Maybe I do have a diferent conception of what videogaming is since my brother introduced me to this with arcade games and dungeon crawlers and stuff, and i did not get into videogames requiring a time investment for plot or world building until a short time ago (and i still think i shouldn't have
) but feeding Death Smiles a quarter doesn't gives you the right to experience the world and see the story unfold and immerse yourself on its rich universe and watch how the story ends. Sure, all that stuff is cool and funny and truly adds to the experience and the feeling of, like, finally did it! but the game's still the meat of it all, and your only right with that quarter is to get slaughtered in the first stage until you have turned on your dodging brain unless you are, like, Gil or Kefit or GL and never turn it off. It is about you and your skill at pew pew ing and dakka dakka ing evil thingies. Or solving puzzles, or waging war against Napoleon or whomever is fashionable now, or piloting a fighter plane, or whatever.
All games are, at its core, tests of skill. Poker? Volleyball? Chess? Truth or dare? x3 They all involve you and your skill working inside a given set of rules towards a given objective, like putting your drunk friends in really awful situations while avoiding that from happening to you, and then you can take blackmailing pictures if you are subtle enough with the cellphone. Sure, you have fun while doing so but if you aren't skilled enough you are going to have fun for a pretty short time, either until your friends decide losing Volleyball match after volleyball match isn't fun for them or until your wallet's belly has nothing else to bet.
Most people who say games aren't about challenge or skill, and i am not focusing on you right here so don't get all moody ferret on me, are talking about, like, the kind of games children play with their friends or with their toys and stuff. And given those have no rules outside make believe they could be considered a form of LARPing and that disqualifies them instantly.
"The rather obvious point is that you can approach objectives in many different ways"
Approaching objectives in many diferent ways isn't gameplay, is the structure or design of the game. The gameplay is in how does it plays once you made your choice when compared to other games offering you a similar gameplay. Shikigami No Shiro III isn't better than Hellsinker because it offers you a fuckton of diferent characters. It is how do those characters play and how deep each one is that defines whether or not they are at the same level. Hint: Not even close, but that's another story.
"Not so fast. I dislike the term of LARP when talking of video games but I guess that it has its purpose. Anyway it is mostly used in reference to acts of make-believe from the player part"
LARP is constantly used to define the Biowarian style of choices that do nothing at all and take you down the same path, just with diferent dialogue. That defines most not pew pew situations in Deus Ex. Do you help that hotel guy or do you not? Sure, they become a nice tight family if you do and the girl leaves forever if you don't. What gameplay effect does that have? What gameplay effect has not letting the thug kill her during your first time in hell's kitchen? What gameplay effect has letting that guy in the plane live, or let Anna kill him, instead of killing him yourself? What gameplay effect do those choose your answer conversations you can have with Gunther and others have? In which way does any of those things have a consequence outside the player's mind and defining the character, Bioware choices like?
" and no, the story shouldn't take precedence over the gameplay but serve it, and that's what it does in this game."
No, it doesn't. I have never heard anyone praising Deus Ex's gameplay. They praise the choice on how to approach diferent situations, and that's not gameplay in all cases other than if you are really most of your bloody time in the game making choices and living consequences instead of sneaking around or shooting people, but then it would be a Visual Novel and no one in the Codex would have played it until a bunch of fans felt the need to translate it for free to stroke their wapanese egos. They praise the immersion, the experience, the mood, the little details in how the game reacts, in ways unrelated to gameplay, to a lot of things. I have never heard someone saying how what they spend ninety percent of their bloody time with Deus Ex doing, that's it sneaking around people or shooting at them or stabing them in the back with a magic nanite sword, is outstanding and genre defining. Not once, because it kind of sucks. You know it, i know it, they know it. Sure, there are worse first person shooters but those aren't heralded as a legend of gaming. Sure, there may be worse stealth games (though i personally haven't found any) but they aren't mentioned in awe of the landmark it represented for gaming.
And if any of those things served gameplay then the focus, the thing taking the spotlight, would be the gameplay, the rest being just secondary things that help build that gameplay instead of stealing the spotlight for themselves.
Also, what Deus Ex does is not unique. Does it changes some lines of dialogue? A reward? Is there an extra enemy in a quest? Jesus, there are vertical shooters out there that change enemy patterns, entire levels, add entirely new boss fights, and loads of extra stuff based on the choices you make during dialogues and during gameplay. Games around mindless pew pew and pure dodging skill do it better. Entire levels, entirely diferent plotlines, entirely new bosses, bosses fighting in entirely new ways. In those games, sure, the so called choices are altering your gameplay, and they aren't even the focus, and are much less called gameplay, and no one even notices outside a passing comment like, sure, it does that. Cool, isn't it? And that's it.
Or, going to other things, is, like, Swords of the Rose Cross an icon of choice and consequence because if i went first to fight the bomberman inspired girl and got her weapon then when doing the Time Stop girl level I can blow an extra wall and get one more life? Choices, consequences! C'mon, getting an extra clip of ammo or one more grenade, or a diferent two rooms and a corridor path through a level, or a bit less money because i blew a train station and killed half a dozen civilians is just lip service, not a true consequence. Bioware does it all the time and you guys bash them because of it. Sure, Bioware has less storytelling flair and much worse writing. So what? It's nothing but lip service in both cases. (nya!)
Other than that i already said it, i don't mind Deus Ex. I just mind it's importance and quality being blown out of proportion by impressionable people that got too carried away in the mood and the atmosphere and the so called interactivity when the core game is pretty shabby. That's all.
:shock: Wall of Neko.
@ Fastpunk
Yes, that's the impression it gives. There's not precise or, like, punctual about it, it's all wide strokes and very abstracted. When a video review of a racing game goes into more detail of the specifics than a written review of a role playing game that's said to be truly revolutionary you can't help but question why they did not found more to mention than the guy playing Split Second on youtube
"So a game is only a test of skill"
A videogame is only a test of skill, yes. It may have other virtues, and I do not have anything against mood or plot or interaction, but just as long as they become part of the gameplay, or a companion to the gameplay. Maybe I do have a diferent conception of what videogaming is since my brother introduced me to this with arcade games and dungeon crawlers and stuff, and i did not get into videogames requiring a time investment for plot or world building until a short time ago (and i still think i shouldn't have
) but feeding Death Smiles a quarter doesn't gives you the right to experience the world and see the story unfold and immerse yourself on its rich universe and watch how the story ends. Sure, all that stuff is cool and funny and truly adds to the experience and the feeling of, like, finally did it! but the game's still the meat of it all, and your only right with that quarter is to get slaughtered in the first stage until you have turned on your dodging brain unless you are, like, Gil or Kefit or GL and never turn it off. It is about you and your skill at pew pew ing and dakka dakka ing evil thingies. Or solving puzzles, or waging war against Napoleon or whomever is fashionable now, or piloting a fighter plane, or whatever.All games are, at its core, tests of skill. Poker? Volleyball? Chess? Truth or dare? x3 They all involve you and your skill working inside a given set of rules towards a given objective, like putting your drunk friends in really awful situations while avoiding that from happening to you, and then you can take blackmailing pictures if you are subtle enough with the cellphone. Sure, you have fun while doing so but if you aren't skilled enough you are going to have fun for a pretty short time, either until your friends decide losing Volleyball match after volleyball match isn't fun for them or until your wallet's belly has nothing else to bet.
Most people who say games aren't about challenge or skill, and i am not focusing on you right here so don't get all moody ferret on me, are talking about, like, the kind of games children play with their friends or with their toys and stuff. And given those have no rules outside make believe they could be considered a form of LARPing and that disqualifies them instantly.
"The rather obvious point is that you can approach objectives in many different ways"
Approaching objectives in many diferent ways isn't gameplay, is the structure or design of the game. The gameplay is in how does it plays once you made your choice when compared to other games offering you a similar gameplay. Shikigami No Shiro III isn't better than Hellsinker because it offers you a fuckton of diferent characters. It is how do those characters play and how deep each one is that defines whether or not they are at the same level. Hint: Not even close, but that's another story.
"Not so fast. I dislike the term of LARP when talking of video games but I guess that it has its purpose. Anyway it is mostly used in reference to acts of make-believe from the player part"
LARP is constantly used to define the Biowarian style of choices that do nothing at all and take you down the same path, just with diferent dialogue. That defines most not pew pew situations in Deus Ex. Do you help that hotel guy or do you not? Sure, they become a nice tight family if you do and the girl leaves forever if you don't. What gameplay effect does that have? What gameplay effect has not letting the thug kill her during your first time in hell's kitchen? What gameplay effect has letting that guy in the plane live, or let Anna kill him, instead of killing him yourself? What gameplay effect do those choose your answer conversations you can have with Gunther and others have? In which way does any of those things have a consequence outside the player's mind and defining the character, Bioware choices like?
" and no, the story shouldn't take precedence over the gameplay but serve it, and that's what it does in this game."
No, it doesn't. I have never heard anyone praising Deus Ex's gameplay. They praise the choice on how to approach diferent situations, and that's not gameplay in all cases other than if you are really most of your bloody time in the game making choices and living consequences instead of sneaking around or shooting people, but then it would be a Visual Novel and no one in the Codex would have played it until a bunch of fans felt the need to translate it for free to stroke their wapanese egos. They praise the immersion, the experience, the mood, the little details in how the game reacts, in ways unrelated to gameplay, to a lot of things. I have never heard someone saying how what they spend ninety percent of their bloody time with Deus Ex doing, that's it sneaking around people or shooting at them or stabing them in the back with a magic nanite sword, is outstanding and genre defining. Not once, because it kind of sucks. You know it, i know it, they know it. Sure, there are worse first person shooters but those aren't heralded as a legend of gaming. Sure, there may be worse stealth games (though i personally haven't found any) but they aren't mentioned in awe of the landmark it represented for gaming.
And if any of those things served gameplay then the focus, the thing taking the spotlight, would be the gameplay, the rest being just secondary things that help build that gameplay instead of stealing the spotlight for themselves.
Also, what Deus Ex does is not unique. Does it changes some lines of dialogue? A reward? Is there an extra enemy in a quest? Jesus, there are vertical shooters out there that change enemy patterns, entire levels, add entirely new boss fights, and loads of extra stuff based on the choices you make during dialogues and during gameplay. Games around mindless pew pew and pure dodging skill do it better. Entire levels, entirely diferent plotlines, entirely new bosses, bosses fighting in entirely new ways. In those games, sure, the so called choices are altering your gameplay, and they aren't even the focus, and are much less called gameplay, and no one even notices outside a passing comment like, sure, it does that. Cool, isn't it? And that's it.
Or, going to other things, is, like, Swords of the Rose Cross an icon of choice and consequence because if i went first to fight the bomberman inspired girl and got her weapon then when doing the Time Stop girl level I can blow an extra wall and get one more life? Choices, consequences! C'mon, getting an extra clip of ammo or one more grenade, or a diferent two rooms and a corridor path through a level, or a bit less money because i blew a train station and killed half a dozen civilians is just lip service, not a true consequence. Bioware does it all the time and you guys bash them because of it. Sure, Bioware has less storytelling flair and much worse writing. So what? It's nothing but lip service in both cases. (nya!)
Other than that i already said it, i don't mind Deus Ex. I just mind it's importance and quality being blown out of proportion by impressionable people that got too carried away in the mood and the atmosphere and the so called interactivity when the core game is pretty shabby. That's all.
:shock: Wall of Neko.
@ Fastpunk
Yes, that's the impression it gives. There's not precise or, like, punctual about it, it's all wide strokes and very abstracted. When a video review of a racing game goes into more detail of the specifics than a written review of a role playing game that's said to be truly revolutionary you can't help but question why they did not found more to mention than the guy playing Split Second on youtube
Brotherman Bill
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 31, 2009
- Messages
- 6,933
What about those previews indicated it was shit?GarfunkeL said:
And don't you think there's a middle ground between "you can't judge it out of only the previews" and "you can't judge it until you have played it for 100 hours?"
Tycn
Savant
you best be trollingphelot said:
JRPGs do not have text, or choices, or good writing, and rarely combat with actual movement. Employing a few of their conventions hardly makes it part of the genre, especially since they are as inconsequential as fixed weapon types. PST took jabs at plenty of WRPG cliches as well.
korenzel
Educated
- Joined
- May 18, 2010
- Messages
- 278
Black Cat said:
I have nothing against this mindset, otherwise I'd hate the majority of the gamers out there. Oh wait, I do... But I thought this here was the RPGcodex, is it not ?
I'd argue that, in Deus Ex, finding different approaches is at the heart of the game, while execution is usually easy. You don't need to turn on your "dodging brain" if you don't want to, or if you don't actually have one. Though you can play that way, you're not locked in a certain mindset, and the loose difficulty allows you to try different things without starting over. Deus Ex may not be the greatest game ever, but it's a fresh break from all the games that enforce gameplay choices, because it provides lots of options. For once, you can actually form up a plan according to your wishes instead of the game designer's ones. There is no "perfect path" set in stone.
SMT is a perfect example of a game enforcing choices, because you're not choosing anything : you're either making a random guess or picking the right option. You need a lot of meta gaming to be able to achieve anything, be it fighting a boss or getting a good ending. Try each attack over and over until one works, reload and do it all the time. Try each combination of dialogue with every possible character, knowing that saying "Hey" instead of "Hi" can potentially kill the guy in later chapters for totally irrelevant reasons. Stray away from the path in the sightliest and you're screwed. What fun. What you call challenge, I call tedium.
And now, I shall be eaten by professional trolls with years of experience.
KalosKagathos
Learned
Hey, it's your fault if you only play shitty JRPGs. Meanwhile, I'll be pondering whether I should join forces with fascist angels, darwinist demons or assrape both while I rain status effect inducing bullets upon my enemies in fun blob combat of SMT that puts M&M and Wizardry to shame.Tycn said:
Clockwork Knight
Arcane
Genma:TheDestroyer said:
There's no tension when you know exactly what to say and have all the time in the world to decide it. What we should be worried about is if we will get tension AND good dialogue.
Clockwork Knight said:
We'll defend it as soon as someone brings up points about Deus Ex that are worth discussing. Black Cat is more or less a dumbfuck who doesn't understand anything, and I wouldn't have the patience to go through her stupid reasons for not liking DX, since none of them are very valid or well thought out.
fastpunk said:
This makes me very happy.
Admiral jimbob
gay as all hell
Black Cat has just been flat-out trolling since her breakdown FFS stop falling for it
Sannom
Augur
- Joined
- Apr 11, 2010
- Messages
- 951
First : why are some people translating the name of other posters in french???
Here, that should tell you more :
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/choos ... col/100103
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4615652/a ... y_trailer/
Grunker said:
Here, that should tell you more :
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/choos ... col/100103
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4615652/a ... y_trailer/
Black Cat
Magister
@ Korenzel
"Oh wait, I do... But I thought this here was the RPGcodex, is it not ?"
The place that was supossed to be inhabited by hardcore gamers with interest in challenge even while this age was about making game easier and easier, but turns out half the locals are bloody casuals interested in LARP and picking dialogue lines?
And for your information Dungeon Crawling is what computer role playing games are about, dood. Go back playing with your action figures and making stories about them in your head.
"I'd argue that, in Deus Ex, finding different approaches is at the heart of the game, while execution is usually easy. You don't need to turn on your "dodging brain" if you don't want to, or if you don't actually have one."
I'd argue then it isn't a game. It's a toy. Like The Sims. Or Petz.
Oh, and... So you can play without your lack of skill in a certain gameplay element being challenged? Again, what's the point then? And again, none of you has answered the basic point of this: If all the gameplay elements are half assed and all the diferent challenges are retard friendly and easy as pie, what's the point of having the power to choose between one or the other? Answer that, then we are game again.
"SMT is a perfect example of a game enforcing choices, because you're not choosing anything : you're either making a random guess or picking the right option."
:facepaw: No, they aren't. They are combat based dungeon crawlers, the entire point of the game is in planning. Sure, if you don't have a balanced main party supported by a collection of demons designed to exploit diferent vulnerabilities or milk the enemy for press turns, for example, sure, it can be kind of harsh. That's the point. It isn't you playing dolls in a dungeon. It is you facing challenges designed to brutally slaughter you, and overcoming those challenges by getting better at the game. Oh, the innovation! :shock:
Of course you can tell me, like, that getting your butt handed to you in a plate if you try to fight Lorelei in Strange Journey before even going into Bootes and with a party composed of characters of three diferent alignments is stalling your choices. I would say it is giving you a choice, and then giving you the consequence you deserve for either building a bad main party or a not varied enough pool of demons to summon as needed.
"Try each attack over and over until one works, reload and do it all the time. Try each combination of dialogue with every possible character, knowing that saying "Hey" instead of "Hi" can potentially kill the guy in later chapters for totally irrelevant reasons."
I kept picking the Law options in dialogue and events and now the neutrals and the infernals hate me! How could this happen? T'is so unfair!
In those games you, wait for it, game the choices. The choices are, see? Part of the gameplay. You screw the choice? You screw your game. If the game doesn't scare you and make you be real careful every time a dialogue tree appears it's casual shit, period.
@ Vibalist
"We'll defend it as soon as someone brings up points about Deus Ex that are worth discussing. Black Cat is more or less a dumbfuck who doesn't understand anything"
I don't understand your Moe, right? Sure, I never heard that one before.
Oh, wait, i see. I don't get Deus Ex. It's my fault I can't see that bloody piece of casual gaming for kids as the landmark it is, a game that gave us the choice of picking between really bad first person shooter mechanics and really bad stealth mechanics, or a mixture of both really bad game systems! Not to forget the dozens of choices lacking in any kind of true gameplay consequence offered us. Awesome! All the power of choices without the load of consequences coming to crash your party and send you all scrambling for a restart!
I have been so wrong, o lord.
Don't try to pull an invalid criticism on me, guy. Do you want the bullet points? Right.
1. Choices do not have gameplay consequences.
2. Game is retard easy, there is no challenge.
3. There is no true punishment for being a bad player.
4. There is no true reward for being the stuff of legends.
5. Stealth gameplay is stupid beyond measure thanks to awful enemy AI and level design not focused on stealth challenges.
6. Actiony gameplay is stupid beyond measure thanks to it having to be kept soft for non combat characters and mixed builds.
Example: You go back to hell's kitchen to meet with an informant in the ruins. Halfway through a great number of soldiers, with some mechs, attack your position. Solution? Charge them with the sword and all your augs active, dood. Maybe use a Thermo Camo thing to get the drop on the mechs, kill each in one hit, then proceed to slaughter the soldiers by means of aligning yourself with the soldier mass, press forward, and click click click, since they can't see you and, if they do, they can't really damage you. GG, you win. In realistic.
Example: You escape from your brother's room or kill your way through. Then you reach battery park and Anna is here, waiting for you. Combat vest + Anti Bullet Skin + Shotgun, and note my skill at rifles was untrained. GG, you win. In realistic. The game's so bloody easy they have to drop a plot command on you to stop your rampage.
7. Some advantages and solutions, like those from hacking and lockpicking, require no skill at all. You are never short on them, so there's no weighting the potential advantage against the potential loss, nor do you have to be a good player to exploit them. GG, you win.
8. Combat has no depth. There are no tactics, there are no better weapons to diferent situations, other than the presence of a Mech leading to kaboom.
9. Prod + Crossbow. Then, evil magic sword + Crossbow. Do you hear that? Is the sound of GG, you win.
@ Tycn
"JRPGs do not have text, or choices, or good writing, and rarely combat with actual movement. Employing a few of their conventions hardly makes it part of the genre, especially since they are as inconsequential as fixed weapon types"
What Kalos said. And last time i checked even Shin Megami Tensei the first had more choices leading to gameplay consequences than Torment, dood.
And for combat with actual movement you should check your sources. Any tactical and strategic JRPG thing? Like, Devil Survivor. That we mentioned like half a dozen times already. Also, dood.
Also, and just to be a treacherous and poisonous bitch, Rhapsody. x3
@ Ex-Sannom
Because we like it and its fun? Just like calling you MiniSannomDoubleChan from now on? :3
"Oh wait, I do... But I thought this here was the RPGcodex, is it not ?"
The place that was supossed to be inhabited by hardcore gamers with interest in challenge even while this age was about making game easier and easier, but turns out half the locals are bloody casuals interested in LARP and picking dialogue lines?
And for your information Dungeon Crawling is what computer role playing games are about, dood. Go back playing with your action figures and making stories about them in your head.
"I'd argue that, in Deus Ex, finding different approaches is at the heart of the game, while execution is usually easy. You don't need to turn on your "dodging brain" if you don't want to, or if you don't actually have one."
I'd argue then it isn't a game. It's a toy. Like The Sims. Or Petz.
Oh, and... So you can play without your lack of skill in a certain gameplay element being challenged? Again, what's the point then? And again, none of you has answered the basic point of this: If all the gameplay elements are half assed and all the diferent challenges are retard friendly and easy as pie, what's the point of having the power to choose between one or the other? Answer that, then we are game again.
"SMT is a perfect example of a game enforcing choices, because you're not choosing anything : you're either making a random guess or picking the right option."
:facepaw: No, they aren't. They are combat based dungeon crawlers, the entire point of the game is in planning. Sure, if you don't have a balanced main party supported by a collection of demons designed to exploit diferent vulnerabilities or milk the enemy for press turns, for example, sure, it can be kind of harsh. That's the point. It isn't you playing dolls in a dungeon. It is you facing challenges designed to brutally slaughter you, and overcoming those challenges by getting better at the game. Oh, the innovation! :shock:
Of course you can tell me, like, that getting your butt handed to you in a plate if you try to fight Lorelei in Strange Journey before even going into Bootes and with a party composed of characters of three diferent alignments is stalling your choices. I would say it is giving you a choice, and then giving you the consequence you deserve for either building a bad main party or a not varied enough pool of demons to summon as needed.
"Try each attack over and over until one works, reload and do it all the time. Try each combination of dialogue with every possible character, knowing that saying "Hey" instead of "Hi" can potentially kill the guy in later chapters for totally irrelevant reasons."
I kept picking the Law options in dialogue and events and now the neutrals and the infernals hate me! How could this happen? T'is so unfair!
In those games you, wait for it, game the choices. The choices are, see? Part of the gameplay. You screw the choice? You screw your game. If the game doesn't scare you and make you be real careful every time a dialogue tree appears it's casual shit, period.
@ Vibalist
"We'll defend it as soon as someone brings up points about Deus Ex that are worth discussing. Black Cat is more or less a dumbfuck who doesn't understand anything"
I don't understand your Moe, right? Sure, I never heard that one before.
Oh, wait, i see. I don't get Deus Ex. It's my fault I can't see that bloody piece of casual gaming for kids as the landmark it is, a game that gave us the choice of picking between really bad first person shooter mechanics and really bad stealth mechanics, or a mixture of both really bad game systems! Not to forget the dozens of choices lacking in any kind of true gameplay consequence offered us. Awesome! All the power of choices without the load of consequences coming to crash your party and send you all scrambling for a restart!
I have been so wrong, o lord.
Don't try to pull an invalid criticism on me, guy. Do you want the bullet points? Right.
1. Choices do not have gameplay consequences.
2. Game is retard easy, there is no challenge.
3. There is no true punishment for being a bad player.
4. There is no true reward for being the stuff of legends.
5. Stealth gameplay is stupid beyond measure thanks to awful enemy AI and level design not focused on stealth challenges.
6. Actiony gameplay is stupid beyond measure thanks to it having to be kept soft for non combat characters and mixed builds.
Example: You go back to hell's kitchen to meet with an informant in the ruins. Halfway through a great number of soldiers, with some mechs, attack your position. Solution? Charge them with the sword and all your augs active, dood. Maybe use a Thermo Camo thing to get the drop on the mechs, kill each in one hit, then proceed to slaughter the soldiers by means of aligning yourself with the soldier mass, press forward, and click click click, since they can't see you and, if they do, they can't really damage you. GG, you win. In realistic.
Example: You escape from your brother's room or kill your way through. Then you reach battery park and Anna is here, waiting for you. Combat vest + Anti Bullet Skin + Shotgun, and note my skill at rifles was untrained. GG, you win. In realistic.
The game's so bloody easy they have to drop a plot command on you to stop your rampage.7. Some advantages and solutions, like those from hacking and lockpicking, require no skill at all. You are never short on them, so there's no weighting the potential advantage against the potential loss, nor do you have to be a good player to exploit them. GG, you win.
8. Combat has no depth. There are no tactics, there are no better weapons to diferent situations, other than the presence of a Mech leading to kaboom.
9. Prod + Crossbow. Then, evil magic sword + Crossbow. Do you hear that? Is the sound of GG, you win.
@ Tycn
"JRPGs do not have text, or choices, or good writing, and rarely combat with actual movement. Employing a few of their conventions hardly makes it part of the genre, especially since they are as inconsequential as fixed weapon types"
What Kalos said. And last time i checked even Shin Megami Tensei the first had more choices leading to gameplay consequences than Torment, dood.
And for combat with actual movement you should check your sources. Any tactical and strategic JRPG thing? Like, Devil Survivor. That we mentioned like half a dozen times already. Also, dood.
Also, and just to be a treacherous and poisonous bitch, Rhapsody. x3
@ Ex-Sannom
Because we like it and its fun? Just like calling you MiniSannomDoubleChan from now on? :3
Phelot
Arcane
- Joined
- Mar 28, 2009
- Messages
- 17,908
Black Cat said:A videogame is only a test of skill, yes. It may have other virtues, and I do not have anything against mood or plot or interaction, but just as long as they become part of the gameplay, or a companion to the gameplay. Maybe I do have a diferent conception of what videogaming is since my brother introduced me to this with arcade games and dungeon crawlers and stuff, and i did not get into videogames requiring a time investment for plot or world building until a short time ago (and i still think i shouldn't have
I agree for the most part. Especially about challenge which seems to be lost in most modern games, but I must disagree that it's the ONLY way of defining a video game which you seem to propose.
I'll use PST again. The gameplay consisted of unraveling the mystery of your character as well as meeting stat checkpoints to uncover more mystery. There really isn't any challenge other then the players willingness to pursue the story. In this case the story IS the gameplay and it happened to be great gameplay.
Honestly, what is gameplay? Is it not the satisfaction of completing whatever the goal of the game is? I'd argue that most modern games such as ME has gameplay which consists of unlocking new gimmicks like romance, or ship upgrades, or just like PST, to progress the story.
Playing Mario Brothers, the satisfaction is from beating a level, were in Civilization it is from conquering and building, sometimes with no actual competitive challenge, yet it still accomplishes it's goal as a game.
The point is that enjoyment from a game isn't just from dodging and shooting well, though it may be and that's ok.
I wish I could respond to the other points, but I"m running late as it is.
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