Team Fortress 2 has one of the most toxic communities of shitbags there ever were, where money=expertise, and flashy effects=worth as a human being.
Plus, the Mini sentry is balls.
Plus, the Mini sentry is balls.
Criticize games you enjoy
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I love love LOVE Skyrim, but many of the quests, particularly the fetch quests, can be wearily predictable. Go to cave A, fight monster B, retrieve random item C, repeat. I'm not saying I wanted each cave to be utterly unique, I understand programmers have limits, but surely there were more ways to add a little variety?
Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I sincerely hope there are more Deus Ex games, because while HR got a lot right there were some areas that obviously suffered from budget/time constraints.
- The environments feel static and underpopulated. The only cars you see are parked, most of the NPC's just stand idly about, and there aren't any kind of in-game events to liven things up.
- The take-downs, while amusing, seem kinda unnecessary. If they'd implemented a proper melee attack it'd improve the flow of game-play quite a lot, plus having the option between non-lethal fists and more damaging arm-blades might actually mean something.
- The character are pretty ugly, and it's not helped much by the stiff animation.
- The shotgun is useless. I know this is kinda a specific gripe, but seriously, it's useless. You can't even kill an unarmored enemy unless he's less than two paces away, and if they are armored then you may as well be shooting them with air.
- The environments feel static and underpopulated. The only cars you see are parked, most of the NPC's just stand idly about, and there aren't any kind of in-game events to liven things up.
- The take-downs, while amusing, seem kinda unnecessary. If they'd implemented a proper melee attack it'd improve the flow of game-play quite a lot, plus having the option between non-lethal fists and more damaging arm-blades might actually mean something.
- The character are pretty ugly, and it's not helped much by the stiff animation.
- The shotgun is useless. I know this is kinda a specific gripe, but seriously, it's useless. You can't even kill an unarmored enemy unless he's less than two paces away, and if they are armored then you may as well be shooting them with air.
Hearthstone. The RNG. Look, I get it, it's a card game so of course there is RNG (believing in the heart of the cards and all that), but it gets to a point where the RNG can either save your life, or it can result in your entire board being wiped and you getting horribly killed. In the face. Cards like the Mad and Madder Bomber are prime examples of this. This card can either take out your opponents board, or or it can clear your own, and it just gets frustrating sometimes, especially when it works completely in your opponent's favour and it secures them the win out of nowhere. You do learn to just take it on the chin and move on, but it is still frustrating, especially when you go on some crazy losing streaks just because you cannot draw a good hand.
Terraria
Love the game to death, and one time decided to try and make a character that relies purely on ranged or magic weapons and gear, and herein lies the flaw. The game is heavily skewed towards melee weapons/gear with all of them offering the best protection and attack, heck there are even some melee weapons that ARE ranged weapons like the True Excalibur/Nights Edge or Terrablade being able to fire energy swords that still deal melee damage. While magic and ranged weapons do less damage and you can run out of their respective resources (mana/ammo), sure its not that much of a crippler as enemies will drop mana stars and you can stock up of a LOT of ammo, but my main gripe is which the damage-defence design it has going. Ideally I'd have it like this:
If you've got a full melee armour set, you can do combos on enemies that can stun lock them or maximize damage output, you can also grapple onto bosses/enemies and like stab away at them (useful when facing levitating bosses/enemies), you're melee damage gets buffed obviously and you can charge up for more powerful hits, also you have the best defence. (also no melee weapons can shoot projectiles, they can summon them like the Headless Horesman's Sword or Starfury)
If you've got a full magic armour set, the magic weapon you have can now be used to buff yourself and it can have a super attack (that'll cost you a lot of mana) also you can buff teamates and mininos (this means that minion armour would be scrapped because it honestly doesn't even offer any decent defence and even with several minions you're not very combat reliable), as a magic user though you're squishy but you have a lot of damage output.
If you've got a full ranged armour set, you can duel wield any ranged weapon except bows (instead with bows you can now shoot three arrows at once as opposed to one at a time), you can also toss out throwable weapons (like grenades, shurikens and throwing knives) in larger numbers instead of one and you have the ability to dodge, you're biggest con being that you have to worry about ammo and your armour strength is somewhere between mage and melee.
I have other stuff I could criticize, mostly going about how the game kinda has this illusion of freedom in terms of character builds and resource usage but its at the same time not that diverse... well its pretty diverse but I felt there can be so much more.
Love the game to death, and one time decided to try and make a character that relies purely on ranged or magic weapons and gear, and herein lies the flaw. The game is heavily skewed towards melee weapons/gear with all of them offering the best protection and attack, heck there are even some melee weapons that ARE ranged weapons like the True Excalibur/Nights Edge or Terrablade being able to fire energy swords that still deal melee damage. While magic and ranged weapons do less damage and you can run out of their respective resources (mana/ammo), sure its not that much of a crippler as enemies will drop mana stars and you can stock up of a LOT of ammo, but my main gripe is which the damage-defence design it has going. Ideally I'd have it like this:
If you've got a full melee armour set, you can do combos on enemies that can stun lock them or maximize damage output, you can also grapple onto bosses/enemies and like stab away at them (useful when facing levitating bosses/enemies), you're melee damage gets buffed obviously and you can charge up for more powerful hits, also you have the best defence. (also no melee weapons can shoot projectiles, they can summon them like the Headless Horesman's Sword or Starfury)
If you've got a full magic armour set, the magic weapon you have can now be used to buff yourself and it can have a super attack (that'll cost you a lot of mana) also you can buff teamates and mininos (this means that minion armour would be scrapped because it honestly doesn't even offer any decent defence and even with several minions you're not very combat reliable), as a magic user though you're squishy but you have a lot of damage output.
If you've got a full ranged armour set, you can duel wield any ranged weapon except bows (instead with bows you can now shoot three arrows at once as opposed to one at a time), you can also toss out throwable weapons (like grenades, shurikens and throwing knives) in larger numbers instead of one and you have the ability to dodge, you're biggest con being that you have to worry about ammo and your armour strength is somewhere between mage and melee.
I have other stuff I could criticize, mostly going about how the game kinda has this illusion of freedom in terms of character builds and resource usage but its at the same time not that diverse... well its pretty diverse but I felt there can be so much more.
Oblivion.
Every quest you do that has a villain, when you go to confront them, they ALWAYS say 'Did you think I would be surprised to find you here?' or 'I knew you'd catch on sooner or later' or something like that.
It would be nice if the villains were more diverse, in that some caught on to you while others didn't, that sort of thing.
Every quest you do that has a villain, when you go to confront them, they ALWAYS say 'Did you think I would be surprised to find you here?' or 'I knew you'd catch on sooner or later' or something like that.
It would be nice if the villains were more diverse, in that some caught on to you while others didn't, that sort of thing.
I would add to that the platforming, what little of it there is. The artstyle already makes judging distance very hard, but it also has invisible railings near some edges to prevent you from falling off, which can really get in the way of trying to time your jump closed to the edge.Johnny Novgorod said:
OT: The Last of Us
- Strangling is too overpowered and has exactly zero risk compared to shiving, which costs a shiv/durabilty. Shivs are presented as the obvious faster and quieter stealth take-down, but strangling holds no down side at all except for it taking a bit longer and not being able to perform it on a Clicker, which can usually be avoided anyway. Shivs are weapons, yet their only real use are for opening shiv doors, which should be the optional use of risk/reward. So yeah, the Strangle/Shiv balance is completely out of whack.
- Once you hit the Fall the gameplay pacing takes a hit. The story takes over, and if you're into the story and characters by that point you probably won't notice, but that gradual sense of progression and travel, and watching the scenary drift by in-game is kinda lost.
- The flamethrower should've never been in the game.
- I wish Ellie was written more like a kid and less like a sass, but this one's a bit more subjective.
Wolfenstein: The New Order
- Anya's hair looks fucking atrocious in certain scenes. It just looks like a bunch of string wrapped around thin air, even on current-gen systems.
- The perks system works a bit counter intuitive. There are a good amount of perks that have universal appeal whether your playstyle is Stealth, Tactical, or Dual Wielding, like bigger gun clips. Yet these are shut away behind a specific playstyle you might not like. So instead of the perks accommodating your playstyle, you eventually accommodate the perks system with a playstyle you don't really enjoy just to get a bigger clip size or faster reload/weapon switch.
- Boss encounters just resort to you unloading your weapons and hope your health will last long enough to win.
- The ending is kinda meh.
No lie, the only time i used a gun or spell in Terraria was when I fought the Wall of Flesh.EMWISE94 said:
Eternal Darkness: The spell-system should be more in-depth.
Also some of the environments are repetitive, my favourite ones are the more normal ones, like the mansion and the church.
Also it's kinda a sausage fest when it comes to playable characters. You got 12 playable characters and only two of them are women. I really do like the diversity in the characters, who are just unfortunate normal people who wander into these situations, but that's even more of a reason to include more women.
Also some of the environments are repetitive, my favourite ones are the more normal ones, like the mansion and the church.
Also it's kinda a sausage fest when it comes to playable characters. You got 12 playable characters and only two of them are women. I really do like the diversity in the characters, who are just unfortunate normal people who wander into these situations, but that's even more of a reason to include more women.
Man I could criticize games I like all day. Where to begin.
1. XCOM
Almost catastrophically bad difficulty pacing...peaks about 3-4 hours in and gently slides downhill after, to the point where the game is trivially easy in the later phases, even on high difficulty. Shallow strategy layer. Dubious/predictable AI. Woefully limited range of customization options, leading to a team of look and sound-alikes. Needed a random map generator in the worst possible way and never got one.
2. CIVILIZATION
Most games are decided in the opening hundred turns and then take days to play out, tediously bumping the "next turn" button as you inch towards inevitable victory. AI is rock stupid and easily nudged over on lower difficulties, and brazenly cheats on higher ones. There's an easily identifiable "critical path" of upgrades that apply to almost every victory type, resulting in every game blending together after a while.
3. ELDER SCROLLS/FALLOUT 3/NEW VEGAS
All these games suffer from similar diseases. Ugly textures, mannequin-like NPCs with stilted dialogue, bugs galore, a total lack of urgency or pacing in the narrative (most of which are irredeemably shoddy), and open worlds that react poorly or not at all to your activities. The play balancing tends to be horrendous as well, they're amongst the most shallow and ass-backwards RPG systems on the market.
4. BIOSHOCK INFINITE/LAST OF US/TO THE MOON/GONE HOME/THE WALKING DEAD/ETC.
Hey guys I know story is awesome but that doesn't mean you need to completely abandon quality game play.
5. WORLD OF WARCRAFT
You finally figured out difficulty tiering for raiding, how hard would it be to apply the same design principle to everything else? For god's sake guys, 99.9% piss-easy topped with a cherry of ludicrously hard makes for a rather jarring play experience.
6. DOTA2
It kills the part of you that once felt joy. There's also really no need for the game to be QUITE that counter-intuitive and fussy. Difficulty that comes from systems depth = good. Difficulty that comes from wrangling a shit-poor UI = bad.
7. SIMS
We're really starting to push the limits of "I enjoy it" with this pick, but I think the merits of The Sims were often underrated by the hardcore gaming community. Still, you stupid motherfuckers, what is this supposed to be, exactly? It barely functions as a sandbox because the AI is so perfunctory that everything needs to be laser guided by your omnipotent hand. The game play elements are vaporous and devoid of challenge or complexity. The immersion keeps getting chucked in the need to instance everything despite the game remaining visually static for about a decade now. I'm beginning to think Maxis is just incompetent. Will Wright is rolling over in his grave. Bed. Whatever.
That'll do for now.
1. XCOM
Almost catastrophically bad difficulty pacing...peaks about 3-4 hours in and gently slides downhill after, to the point where the game is trivially easy in the later phases, even on high difficulty. Shallow strategy layer. Dubious/predictable AI. Woefully limited range of customization options, leading to a team of look and sound-alikes. Needed a random map generator in the worst possible way and never got one.
2. CIVILIZATION
Most games are decided in the opening hundred turns and then take days to play out, tediously bumping the "next turn" button as you inch towards inevitable victory. AI is rock stupid and easily nudged over on lower difficulties, and brazenly cheats on higher ones. There's an easily identifiable "critical path" of upgrades that apply to almost every victory type, resulting in every game blending together after a while.
3. ELDER SCROLLS/FALLOUT 3/NEW VEGAS
All these games suffer from similar diseases. Ugly textures, mannequin-like NPCs with stilted dialogue, bugs galore, a total lack of urgency or pacing in the narrative (most of which are irredeemably shoddy), and open worlds that react poorly or not at all to your activities. The play balancing tends to be horrendous as well, they're amongst the most shallow and ass-backwards RPG systems on the market.
4. BIOSHOCK INFINITE/LAST OF US/TO THE MOON/GONE HOME/THE WALKING DEAD/ETC.
Hey guys I know story is awesome but that doesn't mean you need to completely abandon quality game play.
5. WORLD OF WARCRAFT
You finally figured out difficulty tiering for raiding, how hard would it be to apply the same design principle to everything else? For god's sake guys, 99.9% piss-easy topped with a cherry of ludicrously hard makes for a rather jarring play experience.
6. DOTA2
It kills the part of you that once felt joy. There's also really no need for the game to be QUITE that counter-intuitive and fussy. Difficulty that comes from systems depth = good. Difficulty that comes from wrangling a shit-poor UI = bad.
7. SIMS
We're really starting to push the limits of "I enjoy it" with this pick, but I think the merits of The Sims were often underrated by the hardcore gaming community. Still, you stupid motherfuckers, what is this supposed to be, exactly? It barely functions as a sandbox because the AI is so perfunctory that everything needs to be laser guided by your omnipotent hand. The game play elements are vaporous and devoid of challenge or complexity. The immersion keeps getting chucked in the need to instance everything despite the game remaining visually static for about a decade now. I'm beginning to think Maxis is just incompetent. Will Wright is rolling over in his grave. Bed. Whatever.
That'll do for now.
Ah, I've got another
Thief 2:
The climbing/mantling mechanics are extremely unreliable. It's hard not to save scum when I have no idea whether or not Garret will grab the ledge when I make my next leap.
Some of the guards tend to bug out. Really annoying when a guard ends up getting stuck in a narrow spot and spinning around like a human sentry bot on too much coffee. Thankfully, I have flash bombs for situations like those.
It you haven't played a level before, then you have no way of knowing what equipment you should purchase beforehand.
That darned bug in the courier mission where I cannot pick up the parcel dropped by the guard I'm tailing. Thank goodness for level skip cheats.
It definitely hasn't aged well visually.
If you're not playing on Expert then broad head arrows are overpowered.
Sometimes finding the objective is even harder than not getting spotted. On expert, it can lead to some pixel hunts.
Thief 2:
The climbing/mantling mechanics are extremely unreliable. It's hard not to save scum when I have no idea whether or not Garret will grab the ledge when I make my next leap.
Some of the guards tend to bug out. Really annoying when a guard ends up getting stuck in a narrow spot and spinning around like a human sentry bot on too much coffee. Thankfully, I have flash bombs for situations like those.
It you haven't played a level before, then you have no way of knowing what equipment you should purchase beforehand.
That darned bug in the courier mission where I cannot pick up the parcel dropped by the guard I'm tailing. Thank goodness for level skip cheats.
It definitely hasn't aged well visually.
If you're not playing on Expert then broad head arrows are overpowered.
Sometimes finding the objective is even harder than not getting spotted. On expert, it can lead to some pixel hunts.
Portal: The cake is a lie. 
Now seriously:
Spec Ops: The Line
Why did the other two delta force characters keep following your orders? At some point they must have realised your character's obsession with Conrad was becoming too dangerous.
Now seriously:
Spec Ops: The Line
Why did the other two delta force characters keep following your orders? At some point they must have realised your character's obsession with Conrad was becoming too dangerous.
Mass Effect (the first one). I really like Mass Effect, it has an engaging story, with interesting and engaging characters, in one of the most detailed worlds I've seen in terms of lore (and I'm a huge sucker for lore). It does still have very noticeable issues, and it's pretty obvious that Bioware was rather unfamiliar with making third-person shooters at the time.
-Bad cover system. Most games keep it quite simple with their cover systems, you press a button to enter it and you press a button to leave it. But for some reason, with Mass Effect you have to mannually walk into or out of cover to automatically get in or out of cover, which leads to some unneccesarily awkward combat moments.
-Flawed combat. The weapons in ME lack any kind of real punch to them, it's hard to explain but when you fire them they just don't feel like they make much of an impact on whatever you have in your sights. Battles can also get frustrating since some of your enemies' strategy is simply running straight at your face with no regard for their own safety (not talking about Husks, they're fine) and shoot you full of holes before you can react. There are also times when there's just too much happening on screen and everything becomes a clusterfuck of polygons, which isn't very fun because you end up dying for seemingly no reason.
-Exploration. You spend too much time in the Mako, which handles like a shopping cart on ice, and while exploring different planets has a certain charm to it, it's not handled very well. The terrains aren't very fun or entertaining to traverse, partly thanks to the fact that you have to drive the Mako on them and also because they're pretty lifeless. Aside from random geth or buildings you might find, which all seem to have been made by the same 2 or 3 architects (seriously, it's ridiculous how much those small buildings are copypasted in the sidemissions).
-Navigation is more cumbersome than it should be. Getting from place to place with the main missions is a walk in the park, but the side missions... Ugh. If you want to take on a side mission, you have to look in your journal, memorize exactly where you have to go to initiate it. That means you have to remember which of the numerous systems that mission is in, and again memorize which of the several galaxies in that system you can find it in, and go there. There is nothing on the HUD that displays that information on the galaxy map, for some reason. It's a minor annoyance, but it's still rather annoying.
Thankfully, pretty much all of these complaints were fixed in Mass Effect 2.
-Bad cover system. Most games keep it quite simple with their cover systems, you press a button to enter it and you press a button to leave it. But for some reason, with Mass Effect you have to mannually walk into or out of cover to automatically get in or out of cover, which leads to some unneccesarily awkward combat moments.
-Flawed combat. The weapons in ME lack any kind of real punch to them, it's hard to explain but when you fire them they just don't feel like they make much of an impact on whatever you have in your sights. Battles can also get frustrating since some of your enemies' strategy is simply running straight at your face with no regard for their own safety (not talking about Husks, they're fine) and shoot you full of holes before you can react. There are also times when there's just too much happening on screen and everything becomes a clusterfuck of polygons, which isn't very fun because you end up dying for seemingly no reason.
-Exploration. You spend too much time in the Mako, which handles like a shopping cart on ice, and while exploring different planets has a certain charm to it, it's not handled very well. The terrains aren't very fun or entertaining to traverse, partly thanks to the fact that you have to drive the Mako on them and also because they're pretty lifeless. Aside from random geth or buildings you might find, which all seem to have been made by the same 2 or 3 architects (seriously, it's ridiculous how much those small buildings are copypasted in the sidemissions).
-Navigation is more cumbersome than it should be. Getting from place to place with the main missions is a walk in the park, but the side missions... Ugh. If you want to take on a side mission, you have to look in your journal, memorize exactly where you have to go to initiate it. That means you have to remember which of the numerous systems that mission is in, and again memorize which of the several galaxies in that system you can find it in, and go there. There is nothing on the HUD that displays that information on the galaxy map, for some reason. It's a minor annoyance, but it's still rather annoying.
Thankfully, pretty much all of these complaints were fixed in Mass Effect 2.
Huh, now I'm kinda curious what you like about the games, when they have such massive flaws as you have pointed out.BloatedGuppy said:
Sandbox/immersion engines. Tremendous sense of freedom, and the open continuous world gives a better sense of place/space than almost any other title on the market. Requires willful suspension of disbelief and a willingness to play the game in particular ways to avoid staring at the seams. I've long looked at the Elder Scrolls series as games you either "get" or "don't get". If you "get" them, they're GOTY material. If you don't, you're left sitting there wondering WTF everyone is praising them for.Halla Burrica said:
Devil May Cry 3
The Gunslinger style was pretty useless
They went a little too far in trying to make Dante look cool
Lots of attacks were too interchangeable.
Enemies made of sand make very un-fun punching bags.
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner 2
Very looooong dialogue
Negotiating with devils often felt less like choosing the best answer and more like rolling a dice. I'm certain I saw the same kind of devil respond differently to the same answer.
The Gunslinger style was pretty useless
They went a little too far in trying to make Dante look cool
Lots of attacks were too interchangeable.
Enemies made of sand make very un-fun punching bags.
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner 2
Very looooong dialogue
Negotiating with devils often felt less like choosing the best answer and more like rolling a dice. I'm certain I saw the same kind of devil respond differently to the same answer.
Well, I'll mainly focus on Carmageddon 1 & 2, since some of the problems occur in both games.
What's in both games:
Opponents that have either absurdly high armor or offence. Do you drive around with max APO (armor/power/offence)? Well tough luck, here's an opponent that wrecks you anyway (biggest offenders are Heinz Faust's King Merc in C1, Mother Trucker's Semi Mk1 in Splat Pack and the Abba Cab in C2.
C1/Splat pack: Oh god, the awfull annoying wailing of the sirens from the police units. It gets annoying stupidly fast.
Splat pack: Its obvious which cars are from the main game: they don't reflect the skybox in the windows like the new vehicles do. That and 2 vehicles are bugged; both crash the game unless you change some values, then one spawns normally but the other dissappears of the map (Bugutti and The Sled respectively).
C2: Lacking map design, 'specially the 3 desert stages. They are so bumpy that getting enough room to knock an opponents teeth out isa tough task. This game also shouldn't have shipped without a rank system, the rank system in C1 and Splat Pack made sure you got atleast a certain amounts of credits to gain ranks to unlock new races. Instead we got badly designed missions in 2.
What's in both games:
Opponents that have either absurdly high armor or offence. Do you drive around with max APO (armor/power/offence)? Well tough luck, here's an opponent that wrecks you anyway (biggest offenders are Heinz Faust's King Merc in C1, Mother Trucker's Semi Mk1 in Splat Pack and the Abba Cab in C2.
C1/Splat pack: Oh god, the awfull annoying wailing of the sirens from the police units. It gets annoying stupidly fast.
Splat pack: Its obvious which cars are from the main game: they don't reflect the skybox in the windows like the new vehicles do. That and 2 vehicles are bugged; both crash the game unless you change some values, then one spawns normally but the other dissappears of the map (Bugutti and The Sled respectively).
C2: Lacking map design, 'specially the 3 desert stages. They are so bumpy that getting enough room to knock an opponents teeth out isa tough task. This game also shouldn't have shipped without a rank system, the rank system in C1 and Splat Pack made sure you got atleast a certain amounts of credits to gain ranks to unlock new races. Instead we got badly designed missions in 2.
Welp, I'm in the last dungeon of Wind Waker and I'm sad, I don't want the game to end! Definitely one hell of an amazing game overall.
But the Wind Temple and its counterpart was horrible, just horrible.
I mean, a psuedo-escort mission in a freaking dungeon? That's like walking into a sewer level, finding out its filled with terrible jumping puzzles and your character's legs just got broken upon entry. The Wind Temple especially had me grinding the living hell out of my teeth, doing the command gesture with the wind waker was fun the first three times, not so much the next one hundred times as it had me commanding the character every five freaking seconds at one point.
But the Wind Temple and its counterpart was horrible, just horrible.
I mean, a psuedo-escort mission in a freaking dungeon? That's like walking into a sewer level, finding out its filled with terrible jumping puzzles and your character's legs just got broken upon entry. The Wind Temple especially had me grinding the living hell out of my teeth, doing the command gesture with the wind waker was fun the first three times, not so much the next one hundred times as it had me commanding the character every five freaking seconds at one point.
Rainbow Six: Vegas 2
The game is identical to the previous game. The only changes are slightly clearer graphics, a few more weapons, extended magazines and much less interesting maps. The enemies are really friggin' dumb, basically brain-dead. They will not hesitate to run out in your line of fire even when they just witnessed their mates being blown to bits right in front of them. If a grenade is thrown at them, they will stare at it and back away slowly. I have never seen them escape one even on the hardest difficulty. How does the game attempt to compensate? By making them able to knock a flea off a your back at 4,000 paces even when they aren't aiming at you!
The game is incapable of rendering more than 6 enemies at a time, so the game becomes hide-and-seek once you've killed the 6-man-strong conga line. They all spout the same 6 lines as well and will react to grenades with yells even when I'm just hitting their long-dead corpse. This gets very confusing when you keep hearing sounds of death even when you clearly haven't hit anyone.
When I think about this game, I think "blocky." Everything in this game is blocky. The graphics, the guns, the movement, etc. All very rigid and square. You move very slowly and have a very, VERY short sprint distance. The visuals are all very reddish brown for some reason. Most games are brown, Battlefield 3 is very blue, this game is noticeably red in all environments.
One of the game's touted features is the ability to screw on suppressors while in the midst of combat. Problem is the enemies won't react any differently (they won't be aware but they will still charge your position, furthering my theory that they are idiot savants or moronically clairvoyant) so it's all for aesthetics unless you take into account they make your gun's performance worse.
The antagonist's motivations make absolutely no sense. They once messed up a mission, the effects of which are basically nonexistent yet they want payback on their superiors? For context, they get shot while disarming a bomb right before being ambushed by a large force (for the game). This causes him to shout at you for supposedly setting him up for failure. Problems are that 1) The enemies are very easily dispatched and you can reach him yourself after 2) he seems no worse for wear than the multiple times your squadmates will be shot and can be revived in seconds and 3) There is a prompt for you to revive him, reinforcing the notion that he received no worse punishment than your teammates will dozens of times throughout the rest of the game. It is known that he is the enemy from the last game but this game thinks that it's such a reveal that they have to hold off on it for a long time, though I admit both games are happening simultaneously. Basically, the story is short, pointless, nonsensical and goes nowhere.
Out of the dozens of guns at your disposal, there are a few really good ones that will cause you to overlook everything else unless you really want to challenge yourself. There are even a few guns that are outright useless as they require you empty a full magazine and a bit into an enemy in order to kill them.
It is fun, though.
Just Cause 2
Big world, but very shallow. Why can't I land a plane? Why does the story and mission structure suck so hard?
FarCry 3
Best described as Just Cause 2 through the lens of Call of Duty, I actually liked the story. I know what they were trying to go for with Vaas and Hoyt, but unfortunately Vaas is simply far more interesting than anyone else in the game much to the detriment of the game's intent. Biggest complaint here is the framerate. It always feels that I'm watching a slideshow.
Alien Isolation
I can take the crappy animations of the game and the weird audio issues with speech, so that wasn't an issue with me.
My biggest complaint comes from the creature itself. It doesn't behave like the creature from the first movie, but rather a combination of the depictions in Aliens and Alien 3. It lacks any subtlety that made the first creature scary. It would wait forever in the shadows for someone to come to close to it, then it would strike while revelling in your terror. It would be forever out of sight, the possibility of attack being the primary event in the film.
In the game, it's very content to loudly announce its presence and stand bolt upright in the middle of a brightly lit room. It's also pretty dumb. On nightmare difficulty, I've been able to evade it even when it must have seen me right in front of it. On the same coin, though, it appears that hiding in lockers is futile because it will immediately go to it and peek inside it. I've followed the button prompts but they don't seem to work. It comes across as the developers hiding how dumb it is by giving it supernatural abilities, though these abilities wouldn't have been out of place if it had been as smart as in the film.
It's a shame that it always stays in your vicinity and attacks others only when you're around. I'd enjoy true unpredictability in the environment. Though it would be difficult, imagine if there was an algorithm running in the background that would make it wander the entire station, attacking anyone willy-nilly. You'd never know who you'd encounter in the next room because they could be hiding, elsewhere or dead.
The motion tracker is way too generous and the environment doesn't really allow for tension with this. The screen implies that you have a fairly narrow cone in front of you covering maybe 30 degrees. The game also states that you will not know its position vertically, so it might just be in the vents. In practice, though, you have a full 360 degree 3-level proximity detection cylinder around you that detects it even when it's not moving. This seems like a missed opportunity. I think it should only work for the displayed area on the screen and not to the side or behind. The game could also render the levels above and below you so you genuinely wouldn't know if it were in front of you (tying into the above idea of a truly organic environment). It also should not be able to detect it when it is not moving.
As a separate issue, it seem weird to me that you can spin around as fast as possible and not make a sound. As an added game mechanic, make turning attract it (could be a bit arbitrary but bear with me). That way if it were behind you, you would have to carefully consider turning around. Imagine not being able to see how far it is from you but you know it's right behind you. You just have to turn and look but you can't because that would mean a death sentence. Scary shit.
Splinter Cell 1 and 2
Good GOD the checkpoint system is annoying!
The game is identical to the previous game. The only changes are slightly clearer graphics, a few more weapons, extended magazines and much less interesting maps. The enemies are really friggin' dumb, basically brain-dead. They will not hesitate to run out in your line of fire even when they just witnessed their mates being blown to bits right in front of them. If a grenade is thrown at them, they will stare at it and back away slowly. I have never seen them escape one even on the hardest difficulty. How does the game attempt to compensate? By making them able to knock a flea off a your back at 4,000 paces even when they aren't aiming at you!
The game is incapable of rendering more than 6 enemies at a time, so the game becomes hide-and-seek once you've killed the 6-man-strong conga line. They all spout the same 6 lines as well and will react to grenades with yells even when I'm just hitting their long-dead corpse. This gets very confusing when you keep hearing sounds of death even when you clearly haven't hit anyone.
When I think about this game, I think "blocky." Everything in this game is blocky. The graphics, the guns, the movement, etc. All very rigid and square. You move very slowly and have a very, VERY short sprint distance. The visuals are all very reddish brown for some reason. Most games are brown, Battlefield 3 is very blue, this game is noticeably red in all environments.
One of the game's touted features is the ability to screw on suppressors while in the midst of combat. Problem is the enemies won't react any differently (they won't be aware but they will still charge your position, furthering my theory that they are idiot savants or moronically clairvoyant) so it's all for aesthetics unless you take into account they make your gun's performance worse.
The antagonist's motivations make absolutely no sense. They once messed up a mission, the effects of which are basically nonexistent yet they want payback on their superiors? For context, they get shot while disarming a bomb right before being ambushed by a large force (for the game). This causes him to shout at you for supposedly setting him up for failure. Problems are that 1) The enemies are very easily dispatched and you can reach him yourself after 2) he seems no worse for wear than the multiple times your squadmates will be shot and can be revived in seconds and 3) There is a prompt for you to revive him, reinforcing the notion that he received no worse punishment than your teammates will dozens of times throughout the rest of the game. It is known that he is the enemy from the last game but this game thinks that it's such a reveal that they have to hold off on it for a long time, though I admit both games are happening simultaneously. Basically, the story is short, pointless, nonsensical and goes nowhere.
Out of the dozens of guns at your disposal, there are a few really good ones that will cause you to overlook everything else unless you really want to challenge yourself. There are even a few guns that are outright useless as they require you empty a full magazine and a bit into an enemy in order to kill them.
It is fun, though.
Just Cause 2
Big world, but very shallow. Why can't I land a plane? Why does the story and mission structure suck so hard?
FarCry 3
Best described as Just Cause 2 through the lens of Call of Duty, I actually liked the story. I know what they were trying to go for with Vaas and Hoyt, but unfortunately Vaas is simply far more interesting than anyone else in the game much to the detriment of the game's intent. Biggest complaint here is the framerate. It always feels that I'm watching a slideshow.
Alien Isolation
I can take the crappy animations of the game and the weird audio issues with speech, so that wasn't an issue with me.
My biggest complaint comes from the creature itself. It doesn't behave like the creature from the first movie, but rather a combination of the depictions in Aliens and Alien 3. It lacks any subtlety that made the first creature scary. It would wait forever in the shadows for someone to come to close to it, then it would strike while revelling in your terror. It would be forever out of sight, the possibility of attack being the primary event in the film.
In the game, it's very content to loudly announce its presence and stand bolt upright in the middle of a brightly lit room. It's also pretty dumb. On nightmare difficulty, I've been able to evade it even when it must have seen me right in front of it. On the same coin, though, it appears that hiding in lockers is futile because it will immediately go to it and peek inside it. I've followed the button prompts but they don't seem to work. It comes across as the developers hiding how dumb it is by giving it supernatural abilities, though these abilities wouldn't have been out of place if it had been as smart as in the film.
It's a shame that it always stays in your vicinity and attacks others only when you're around. I'd enjoy true unpredictability in the environment. Though it would be difficult, imagine if there was an algorithm running in the background that would make it wander the entire station, attacking anyone willy-nilly. You'd never know who you'd encounter in the next room because they could be hiding, elsewhere or dead.
The motion tracker is way too generous and the environment doesn't really allow for tension with this. The screen implies that you have a fairly narrow cone in front of you covering maybe 30 degrees. The game also states that you will not know its position vertically, so it might just be in the vents. In practice, though, you have a full 360 degree 3-level proximity detection cylinder around you that detects it even when it's not moving. This seems like a missed opportunity. I think it should only work for the displayed area on the screen and not to the side or behind. The game could also render the levels above and below you so you genuinely wouldn't know if it were in front of you (tying into the above idea of a truly organic environment). It also should not be able to detect it when it is not moving.
As a separate issue, it seem weird to me that you can spin around as fast as possible and not make a sound. As an added game mechanic, make turning attract it (could be a bit arbitrary but bear with me). That way if it were behind you, you would have to carefully consider turning around. Imagine not being able to see how far it is from you but you know it's right behind you. You just have to turn and look but you can't because that would mean a death sentence. Scary shit.
Splinter Cell 1 and 2
Good GOD the checkpoint system is annoying!