Truth - yet ATI is rather slow about giving me an Xorg 1.7 compatible driver. Bastards. I haven't played a PC multiplayer game in some time (aside from MMORPGs) - need to see what's out there as of late.Dexter111 said:
Betrayal
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
Another game that you should have given as an example:
Ya, that cliche is old as Hell. Even Guild Wars used it...
I also thought that Bioshock did a good job of betraying you. Predictable, but it explained why the enemy was using you instead of one of their minions.
I can forgive that.oppp7 said:
It was a nice plot twist that really caught me by surprise. I mean, I thought I was going to get betrayed at some point along the storyline but the way it happened really caught me off guard.
Yeah, that was weird.jthm said:
Kind of like when Morgan Freeman said ************ in "Wanted".
The beard said it all to me.Phoenixlight said:
OT: I don't mind a betrayal as long as it is well hidden, otherwise I just keep waiting and wondering if the protagonist is blind. It's even more annoying if I can't do anything to stop the betrayal ahead of time.
Someone explain this to me:
Why does Shephard betray you in Modern Warfare 2 anyway? He'd kill his best soldiers in his own task force for...personal glory? Where's the logic in that?
And why do Shadow Company just go along with this? Didn't one of them think "ooh, that's a bit harsh"?
And why do Shadow Company just go along with this? Didn't one of them think "ooh, that's a bit harsh"?
Judging a game's single-player component is judging the food. Judging a game's multiplayer component is judging the food based on the other people at your table. If the food is crap, it's still going to be crap with company, but you can just push the food around on the plate and pass the time talking. On its own, there's nothing to distract you from what a terrible meal the kitchen put in front of you.Dexter111 said:
What's that you're suggesting? Multiplayer gaming with opponents who are constantly changing and adapting has more replayability than a static story where the same strategies will always work? You don't say!Abedeus said:
That doesn't diminish the single-player campaign's quality on your first playthrough. Or, if you're like me and suck at RTS games, your second, third, fourth plays trying to improve and figure out how to beat the AI better (or at all on some missions).
Amusingly enough I just reinstalled Starcraft a few days ago to play - ohnoes - the single-player campaign. Again. But that's just me.
Disregarding the single-player campaign of a game that includes a "real" single-player campaign by saying it isn't part of "the actual game" is simply wrong. If all the multiplayer includes, mechanically speaking, that the single-player lacks is a few more guns then the single-player campaign is close to half the game, at least. Again: the community is not part of the game. The fact that a huge amount of people play a game in multiplayer does not make that part of the game "more" than the single-player campaign. A single-player tutorial, sure, that's obviously just a tutorial to acquaint you with the controls. A single-player campaign is the foundation of the game if it exists; the multiplayer builds on that, sometimes expanding beyond what's available in the campaign (in this case, as mentioned, weapons). Therefore, if the campaign is crap, the game is likely crap and is saved from the scrap heap by external mitigating factors: the community that plays it, user-created mods, controversy, etc.Abedeus said:
Removed unnecessary quip.
Personally I loved one aspect of the "Bioshock" twist (I would kindly refrain from spoiling it here, but anyone who's finished it knows what I mean) but hated the betrayal aspect of it. Partly because both Atlas and the man behind him are such meagre characters. The villain when finally revealed is, frankly, a bit of a let-down. He's certainly a helluva lot less impressive than Andrew Ryan. He's a bit of a prat.
Compare that to the game it's borrowing from / ripping off at many points, "System Shock 2". I could write an entire essay on why Janice Polito, the "narrator" of your journey in that game, is the best NPC character ever created in any game I've played. So I will. Beware MAJOR spoilers (although if you don't already know the "twist" in SS2 then you've probably never read any gaming forum ever... and, well, here you are.)
So that's why I think Janice Polito is the greatest NPC character in gaming, and why I think System Shock 2 did this kind of twist better than anybody else.
Compare that to the game it's borrowing from / ripping off at many points, "System Shock 2". I could write an entire essay on why Janice Polito, the "narrator" of your journey in that game, is the best NPC character ever created in any game I've played. So I will. Beware MAJOR spoilers (although if you don't already know the "twist" in SS2 then you've probably never read any gaming forum ever... and, well, here you are.)
First of all, Polito is the "soul" of the game. Your (the player's) journey echoes hers, in terms of both the discoveries you make and the things that you have to do. Like Polito you find yourself in a nightmarish situation with a single powerful ally who helps you to survive. You are up against "The Many", a breed of annelids who take over humans, degrading their bodies and their minds until they are capable of little else than acting like death-dealing puppets while begging you to kill them and put them out of their misery.
Like Polito, the player begins the game thinking that "The Many" is as bad as it gets. And yet from the start there's a great moral ambiguity to the game, because "The Many" doesn't think of itself as a predator. It's doing what comes naturally to it to survive, but more than that, it sees itself as a benefactor. Far from destroying its enemies, it assimilates their biomass, gives them a purpose, and makes their bodies stronger than they were before.
Of course, none of this is clear at the start. At the beginning "The Many" is the nightmare, the crazed suicidal zombies that stalk the corridors of a lonely spaceship trying to kill you. Like Polito, your initial mission is to destroy this threat. And like Polito, this becomes corrupted when the true nature of your "helper" becomes revealed. All of a sudden, you're not a lone avenger or the savior of humanity. Instead you're committing genocide of a species that in some perverse way actually regards itself as a benefactor to the human race, and at the behest of its creator - a being that seeks only to destroy anything that does not fit into its grand vision. It's not just trying to survive, nor does it consider anything else to be innately worthy of life. It wants to be a God.
How do you deal with the consequences of this? That's what the game asks. As a player, of course, you have no choice - to win the game you have to play along. Polito took a different way out. Seeing no possible future for herself and betrayed at every turn, she shot herself. Even after it is revealed that the "Polito" who's been guiding you is in fact the destroyer masquerading as her, her story continues up until the very end, where the last piece of information you hear from her is her suicide note.
There's also something about the destroyer's masquerade that is almost worse than the other crimes it commits (which include attempted genocide of both its own offspring and the human race, something that is so outlandish that it's almost impossible to connect with "emotionally") - after all, it is directly responsible for her suicide. As the player relives what Polito went through, in the form of her audio logs and notes, it hammers home the point of just how bad the being whose instructions you have no choice but to follow really is.
Like Polito, the player begins the game thinking that "The Many" is as bad as it gets. And yet from the start there's a great moral ambiguity to the game, because "The Many" doesn't think of itself as a predator. It's doing what comes naturally to it to survive, but more than that, it sees itself as a benefactor. Far from destroying its enemies, it assimilates their biomass, gives them a purpose, and makes their bodies stronger than they were before.
Of course, none of this is clear at the start. At the beginning "The Many" is the nightmare, the crazed suicidal zombies that stalk the corridors of a lonely spaceship trying to kill you. Like Polito, your initial mission is to destroy this threat. And like Polito, this becomes corrupted when the true nature of your "helper" becomes revealed. All of a sudden, you're not a lone avenger or the savior of humanity. Instead you're committing genocide of a species that in some perverse way actually regards itself as a benefactor to the human race, and at the behest of its creator - a being that seeks only to destroy anything that does not fit into its grand vision. It's not just trying to survive, nor does it consider anything else to be innately worthy of life. It wants to be a God.
How do you deal with the consequences of this? That's what the game asks. As a player, of course, you have no choice - to win the game you have to play along. Polito took a different way out. Seeing no possible future for herself and betrayed at every turn, she shot herself. Even after it is revealed that the "Polito" who's been guiding you is in fact the destroyer masquerading as her, her story continues up until the very end, where the last piece of information you hear from her is her suicide note.
There's also something about the destroyer's masquerade that is almost worse than the other crimes it commits (which include attempted genocide of both its own offspring and the human race, something that is so outlandish that it's almost impossible to connect with "emotionally") - after all, it is directly responsible for her suicide. As the player relives what Polito went through, in the form of her audio logs and notes, it hammers home the point of just how bad the being whose instructions you have no choice but to follow really is.
So that's why I think Janice Polito is the greatest NPC character in gaming, and why I think System Shock 2 did this kind of twist better than anybody else.
I don't think that the single player is the core element of a game all the time. That is, for the most part, your opinion.Shjade said:
A game should be reviewed according to the focus the game gives on each perspective. If the focus is more on the multiplayer side, it should be reviewed based mostly on the multiplayer. Not doing so is like reviewing A hamburger and giving it 2/10 because the lettuce wasn't that good.
So what? So what if the lettuce sucked, we're not reviewing a salad here, we are reviewing a HAMBURGER, A totally different dish, and it should be reviewed according to a completely different set of criteria.
This game was marketed all around multyplayer-all the commercials were about the multiplayer, all the trailers were about the multiplayer, hell-I didn't even know this game had a single player aspect until this very review.
personally I enjoyed Bad Company 2's camaign (I only rented the game, having doubts about it)
the WWII prologue was a surprise to me and felt good to play
the betrayal...that was so obvious from the start
even without MW2 coming before (didn't see that one coming mainly because the mission right before it occurred was so bloody hard, and well most the characters talk all gruff and manly so it's hard to read their tone of voice...and Price was acting crazier than Shepard lol)
but I'll admit, the second to last level in BC2 had so much dust my eyes started to hurt from the strain
before that it was fine
I mean, I haven't really noticed either obvious or badly done betrayals myself
except BC2, that was so obvious my mind didn't even take note really
the WWII prologue was a surprise to me and felt good to play
the betrayal...that was so obvious from the start
even without MW2 coming before (didn't see that one coming mainly because the mission right before it occurred was so bloody hard, and well most the characters talk all gruff and manly so it's hard to read their tone of voice...and Price was acting crazier than Shepard lol)
but I'll admit, the second to last level in BC2 had so much dust my eyes started to hurt from the strain
before that it was fine
I mean, I haven't really noticed either obvious or badly done betrayals myself
except BC2, that was so obvious my mind didn't even take note really
MW2's use of betrayal is kind of overshadowed by the complete incoherance of the entire plot. And it is definatley overused in games to day. In pretty much any shooter or RPG, there will be at least one character who will stab you in the back at one pint or another.
Nahh, it's a common expression for any plot element actually.stonethered said:
Oh, and it's spelled "macguffin".