Rack said:
Somewhat true but one of the better things about Starcraft 1 was that you got 2-3 new toys each mission and in the Expansion you started off with a full complement. SC2 feels very backwards by comparison.[/quote]
True, but you were also working with less missions per race in the first game and expansion.
MaxPowers666 said:
They said that the game was to big to do in one and had to be three games. The only reason it is so big is that atleast half closer to 3/4 of the missions had nothing to do with the main plot. That is my point. If like in the previous games where pretty much every mission was plot driven then sc2 all three of them would easily fit into one game. Instead they wanted to add tons of extra missions half of them basically being tutorials for different units to expand it into 3 games. Thats why my point is valid in this case. You cant say your game is to big for one and had to be divided in three when it contains mostly filler missions. Well unless your admiting its because you want more money.
Okay dude, I want you to think about the two features in the terran campaign; upgrading and being able to chose which missions to complete in which order. Both of them needed a lot of time to be effective. Cutting down on missions makes both systems redundant, and the game pretty much becomes Starcraft 1 with prettier graphics and a different story. So Blizzard decides to try something new and you criticise them for not being the same.
I have no problem with filler missions if they extent the game and make it longer but when their is so many it makes it into 3 games I dont like it. I dont think were better off with a trilogy when the core story would more then fit into one game. Hell they could have done one game and and a single expansion and it might have flown.
Well we're going to have to agree to disagree there. You seem to like rather simplistic approach to storytelling; only the core story matters and everything else is pointless. Others, like myself, prefer a more in depth and layered story. For instance games like Mass Effect and Zelda would be losing a lot if you just stripped away all the side plots.
The whole point behind these "filler" missions is to give the impression that you are actually in a fleshed-out universe, because otherwise it seems rather flat. Look at the original starcraft; while the Sons of Korhol were fighting the Confederacy what else was happening? At no point were we given any indication that the universe did in fact exist while these characters weren't percieving it; it wasn't exactly the best storytelling. Here, we get a sense that there are things happening that don't have to deal with Raynor.
And you're also wrong with your filler remarks by the way. Filler is to fill in time without contributing anything at all. Each mission tree characterises Raynor and gives him some character development. Filler would just be him saving the day and walking off into the sunset.
Cynical skeptic said:
Shaoken said:
Wow dude, that was some pretty aggressive quibbling.
Its tempting to not even dignify it with a response, but lack of response is invariably interpreted as "victory" on these, the digital seas.
Seriously dude, if you don't want to respond, don't respond. Who gives a fuck what others think?
Games used to be designed as progressively upward trending challenges with considerably smaller margins for error. Now they're designed as a series of vicarious spectacles, which the game holds your hand all the way through, making sure you don't get lost or hurt.
Again, you're painting every game with the same brush. I'll bring up another example; Portal. It gets increasingly harder and the game provides less clues as time went on. Another example; Silent Hill 2. The closest it got to holding your hand was telling you where you should go. But it never told you what was between you and there, how to actually get there, and what you should do once you got there.
As such, I would argue that pac-man is more complex than most games made today. In order to actually "beat" it, one needed to learn the behavior of all the ghosts and apply that knowledge until the game bugged out.
That's not complexity, that's a false difficulty. That's the developers designing a game to be unwinnable. It'd be like saying Tetris is the most complex game ever because you have to learn to micromanage and you can't ever win.
Whereas, nowadays, people consider a game "beaten" if they've facerolled through the single player campaign on the lowest difficulty (which have simply gotten easier since their first implementation in arcade settings screens).
Seriously man, you sound like an elitist. "Oh games are easier now, all these new kids aren't as good as me because they never played unwinable games before!"
Then, even if you attempt to argue that "deep" games are a relatively recent phenomena, and even if I agreed with you, its still hard to argue their continued presence. There was practically a glut (a peak, if you will) of such games around the period you speak, but now they're non-existent.
Mass Effect 2. 2010. "Is it right to sterilise a race because they're too warlike? Which is morally acceptable; destroying a race of machines or reprograming them to accept your conclusion? Is it right to exploit technology that was made off the backs of tens of thousands of dead civillians?" That was released this very year, yet according to you it's non-existant.
Also, I like the self-contradictory nature of holding up a small handful of "modern" games as evidence against my assertion that gaming, over the years, is a progressive drop in all aspects (except price) and using the exact opposite argument to say "the past suxx!!"
Except I'm not saying the past sucks. I'm arguing that such generalisations are stupid and untrue, and that you seem incapable of telling the difference between games beyond what period they were made in.
I'd go so far as to say you're looking at the present through eyes tainted by hype, while accusing anyone who points this out of looking to the past with overly romanticized nostalgia.
Except I know I'm right, because you pretty much paint today's games as all being "Kane and Lynches" and ignore any game that happens to disprove you. I acknowledge the greats of the past, but I don't act like all of them were like that while you act like every modern game is exactly the same.
