Interview Fable: Lesson Learned - Shit sells

[Sol Invictus]

Yes because obviously the Codex's word is gospel when it comes to SS2 being "the most awesome fps of all time".

 

[TheGreatGodPan]

It took me a pretty long time to find a gun in SS2, so I'm not sure if it belongs in the category of FPS. RPG/FPS hybrid is closer. A lot of people have played through without ever using ranged weapons, and that's not including pure psychic players (the players aren't psychic, but the characters are). Probably the best thing about SS2 was the atmosphere. Scarier than any other game I know of, and the enemies are fundamentally repulsive so even when they wail "Killll meee" you'd rather follow their earlier command to "Rrruunnnn". And the spiders! The spiders! I wish the game areas were less constricted like Thief and I like Deus Ex's take on RPGs a lot better, but SS2 still resides among the best games of all time for me.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Well, as I said, it's a decent game and it ranks high up there, but I wouldn't rate it personally as one of the best of all time. SS2 fans seem to throw a fit whenever anyone mentions that the game might not be as good as they think it is. I mean you just have to look at the way some of the maps were designed. Gas mazes fucking suck.

 

[theverybigslayer]

You only say that because Saint doesnt like it.

No surprise , Saint is the best on this site.
SS2 sucks as an rpg and sucks as a fps.
Yeah it's scary, so it can be a good horror adventure.

 

[triCritical]

You only say that because Saint doesnt like it.

SS2 sucks as an rpg and sucks as a fps.

Why does it suck as an FPS, is not l33t? Or my favorite there is not enough shit to kill. And why does it suck as a RPG? Because I cannot munchkin my character...

Some people around here don't like it because there is no dialogue, and your staple RPG shit. However, it forces you to play a specific type character and stick to it. Unfortunately its very linear, but you are forced into a specific role, and it does this well. Its an early hybrid game, and IMO the best hybrid game.

Obviously one has to know what they are getting with SS2. And if they don't that doesn't mean SS2 sucks. I thought it was pure quality... But certainly not something that is up there with the games that I historically played over and over.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Deus Ex is a much better hybrid game. It had dialogue and choices.

 

[obediah]

SS2 sucks as an rpg and sucks as a fps.

Yeah, I guess so. Luckily it was pretty awesome as a fps-rpg-survival hybrid. I think SS1 runs circles around it, and then circles around those circles. Playing SS1 was definitely one of my top ten gaming experiences. However the interface and controls were bad then, so I can't imagine how horrible it would be to play now.

I'd definitely but Deus Ex over SS2, especially when you strip the "OMG!! More System Shockz!!!!" haze from SS2, which made me able to overlook a lot of the smaller problems with SS2 and have a great time with it. Oddly, the "OMG!!! More Deus Ex!!!!!" haze which was nearly as strong, was burnt through about 4 minutes into the shitfest called Deus Ex 2.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Well, there are a number of reasons I didn't like System Shock 2. I didn't like the fact you could clear a sealed area, then walk in front of a camera and it would spawn new mutant monkeys to come get you. If the alarms attracted creatures the way it was designed to feel rather than faking it with a spawn gimmick, that would have been fine.

I really hated the reload feature. If you're in the middle of a firefight, ran out of a type of ammo and hit "R", it would just make that clicking noise like you had no ammo. You could have tons of ammo for that gun, but if you ran out of the specific type you were using at the start of the fight it wouldn't default to another ammo type.

I really hate the idea of perpetual damage mazes like the engineering section of the ship in SS2. They're not completely annoying in isometric view because you have a better view of the area around you. However, they're completely irritating in first person when the corridors are narrow and you have a limited view angle. I haven't liked these since the days of playing Doom wads from cdrom.com.

I didn't like that the creatures in the game could turn around instantly. It kind of ruins any chance you have for sneaking up on them. Big hulking, slow moving robots shouldn't be able to turn around instantly.

 

[obediah]

...valid criticism of SS2...

I agree with all of the things you mentioned. Some bothered me more than others, but none were enough to break the fun for me. If I had been otherwise neutral to the game, they would have pushed me to a negative reaction, and if I otherwise didn't like the game they would have had me cursing at the computer. Out of curiousity, did you play/enjoy System Shock?

 

[Chefe]

The system shock 2 demo was cool, but I never have played the full game. I wonder how it relates to Fable.

 

[Naked_Lunch]

You can't compare the two, really.

 

[LlamaGod]

Gas mazes fucking suck.

Before you, Saint was the only one to complain about that. o mai what original opinions you have.

 

[Spazmo]

Your points are valid, Prov, but it doesn't change that System Shock 2 fucking ruled in terms of pretty much everything else it did.

 

[bryce777]

I just find it funny they act like an SDD will save them from their stupidity. As if there is some magic to it. I can't tell you how many times I have seen some idiot labor over an SDD for weeks or even months, then everyone sticks to this horrible design NO MATTER WHAT and the project disasterously fails.

Either you can design and know what you are doing, or you can't. Obviously theya re either outrageous liars or horrible even for the sftware industry at estimating the amount of time something is going to take.

If you have things more or less designed well, a design document should flow incredibly easily. I just redesigned some dopy software a coworker is making from scratch in an afternoon with visio and good ole emacs. If you don't, no amount of painstaking scribbling will make your crap design into a good design.

 

[TheGreatGodPan]

Deus Ex is a much better hybrid game. It had dialogue and choices.

I absolutely and completely agree. Although one aspect System Shock 2 has over Deus Ex in terms of RPGness is that you can wander all around the ship, whereas Deus Ex is broken up into levels and areas. Deus Ex is still far superior though.

 

[Section8]

Deus Ex is a much better hybrid game. It had dialogue and choices.

Funnily enough, those things make SS2 a better game in my eyes. The choices in Deus Ex were exceedingly limited, and easily breakable if you wanted to step outside the script. It was good that it offered multiple ways to overcome obstacles in the course of missions, but a lot of the choices seemed entirely superficial. I seem to remember a corridor that branched into three separate passages, one filled with water, one filled with LAMs, and the third filled with robots. The choices in many places were so black and white, they may as well have done away with them. It's when choices are somewhere in a grey area that they become a reasonable inclusion.

As far as dialogue goes, I much preferred SS 1 and 2s method of character exposition. The idea of audio logs is brilliant, since it means you can give an NPC a unique personality, without disrupting gameflow in any way.

I've heard a great many people tell me how wonderful the books in Morrowind are, but I've never sat down to read one, it doesn't fit my motivation for playing the game. I'd rather read a real book in the physical world. Audio logs are a very effective compromise. Since fixed backstory is not interactive in any way, allowing the player to interact in other ways while the back story is revealed suits me to a tee.

It also has no voicing of the player character, which is a pet hate of mine. I have nothing against well-acted VO for NPCs, but I'd rather not have my character exhibiting personality beyond my control.

As for Saint Proverbius' points, they're all valid, but hardly game breakers. The respawning enemies was definitely a bad design decision, and could have been approached in a different manner. If reasonable security measures had been taken into account across global level design principles, then you're halfway to fixing the problem (ie each camera has a neaby turret or 'bot to react to a code red). The other half is a bit trickier, since it involves a reasonable method to dispatch agents of The Many in limited numbers.

The solution to big hulking robots, is to exploit their lack of mobility by getting right in their face, and between their weapon arms. Not quite as intuitive as dancing around them, but it still provides a reasonable way for melee characters to defeat them.

As it stands, System Shock 2 has more than enough positive features to overshadow the niggling little irritations here and there.

Oh, and one last thing. The thing that spoiled Deus Ex for me was the combat. I could just never get my head around the hip-swivelling, circle-strafing, fancy dancing enemies. They just looked utterly spastic, it was like fighting the ministry for silly walks. So that kind of spoiled the shooter elements for me. Fuck Deus Ex.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I also didn't really like the character system or the classes much. I think the game would have been a lot better if it didn't have the FIGHTER/HACKER/MAGEY deal or at least did a better job with them. The psy ops guy pretty much sucked through the majority of the game. It was almost a test of your ability to utilitize the save/load feature of the game. The marine was boring as dirt. The navy guy could hack, but.. Well, there wasn't much to hack that had any major impact on the game. You can't control the robots, for example. You can't seal off sections of the ship and vent bad guys in to space. You can't flush the radiation from the engineering section. More importantly, you can't rig up a self destruct, hop in a life pod, and laugh your way back to earth.

That brings up another problem. Maybe I've seen too many Star Trek episodes where one crew person has to Die Hard his way to saving the ship - but none of that stuff was in there. The ship didn't even feel much like a ship. If the game didn't repeatedly tell you that you were on a space ship, I doubt anyone would have known what they were in.

Really, the game would have been better if there were jefferies tubes all over the place to sneak through. It would have been better if there were airlocks to play around with - luring enemies in with an audio recording of a crewman and then spacing them. Maybe sucking the radiation from the engineering section to a section where you know bad guys are to fry them crispy for shits and giggles.

 

[obediah]

Oh, and one last thing. The thing that spoiled Deus Ex for me was the combat. I could just never get my head around the hip-swivelling, circle-strafing, fancy dancing enemies. They just looked utterly spastic, it was like fighting the ministry for silly walks. So that kind of spoiled the shooter elements for me. Fuck Deus Ex.

Fine rational thoughts, except the problem you point out with DE above is similar to the problems saint has with SS2. I liked both games, and took the problems with both in stride. Saint didn't like SS2 and took exception to some issues, and you didn't like the Deus and took exception to some issues, but it seems you failed to make the connection between the two.

That's the great thing about the codex...as long as we all bash soil erosion as needed, we're free to exchange worthless critiques of various methods of using silicon and electricity to absolve ourselves of the pressure of accomplishing something with our lives, and hurl childish insults at 80x80 icons abstracting out whatever modicum of humanity any of us could muster.

 

[Shevek]

Well, as I said, it's a decent game and it ranks high up there, but I wouldn't rate it personally as one of the best of all time.

SS2 is easily near the top of the heap on my list. Im sure you are proud to feature Diablo and Nox on yours.

 

[Section8]

You're forgetting that my personal preferences have more relevance than everyone else's.

 

[theverybigslayer]

The system shock 2 demo was cool, but I never have played the full game. I wonder how it relates to Fable.

Naked_Lunch can't compare it, but I can! It's easy!

System Shock2 = 10/10
Fable = 0/10

I don't like SS2, Deus Ex etc, but if I compare to that overhyped console shit...

 

[Naked_Lunch]

You can't compare them because they're so fundamentally different. It's like comparing The Seventh Seal to Austin Powers.

 

[Chefe]

Naked_Lunch can't compare it, but I can! It's easy!

System Shock2 = 10/10
Fable = 0/10

Yes, you can compare it if you're an idiot.

They're not even close to the same fucking genres. It's like comparing DOOM with Zelda.