Demon's Souls
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
"But the time I have for playing games for a review is limited. When I'm killed and have to start over from half an hour ago, that's about an hour of wasted time. That's what made me angry about Demon's Souls. Every single time I pushed a little bit further, some new, dirty trick would be pulled and I'd have to re-play through the same dirty tricks that led up to it. And I'd get angrier and more hasty each time, increasing the likelihood of being killed by one of the earlier traps I thought I'd mastered."
Word of advice: Never, ever play Supaplex.
Ever.
This occurred to me constantly with every level that was remotely difficult in the game, to the point of extreme frustration and it taking me 2 or 2 and a half hours to complete a level whose implementation takes a total of 6 minutes when I perform everything well.
Word of advice: Never, ever play Supaplex.
Ever.
This occurred to me constantly with every level that was remotely difficult in the game, to the point of extreme frustration and it taking me 2 or 2 and a half hours to complete a level whose implementation takes a total of 6 minutes when I perform everything well.
The Escapist Community Vs. Atkinson. The showdown of the century...It's about time Australia got into a war
Posting Atkinson's e-mail adress - an act of epicness.
Niiice.
The article itself was really good, though.
Th
Niiice.
The article itself was really good, though.
Th
Yahtzee just comes off as a giant baby if you ask me.
It seems he was butthurt about the game kicking his ass, and felt his manliness was mocked or something, because his death "wasn't funny", unlike in IWBTG.
As for the checkpoints/difficulty system bitching... Grow a pair. I'm not gonna go all reviewer-ish on him, but come on. That's the point of the game.
That's like saying "hhurrr durr mega man 9 is TOO HARD give it a checkpoint every screen and an easy difficulty system so that I can say I beat the game and get to the AWESOMEEEE ENDING"
It seems he was butthurt about the game kicking his ass, and felt his manliness was mocked or something, because his death "wasn't funny", unlike in IWBTG.
As for the checkpoints/difficulty system bitching... Grow a pair. I'm not gonna go all reviewer-ish on him, but come on. That's the point of the game.
That's like saying "hhurrr durr mega man 9 is TOO HARD give it a checkpoint every screen and an easy difficulty system so that I can say I beat the game and get to the AWESOMEEEE ENDING"
But that's just my point. You went through hours of gameplay without dying, and then this one 5 minute segment is repeated an obscene amount of time... How many? 5? 10? Half hour to an hour of constantly dying and retrying in the same spot, redoing the same moves, watching the same attacks, until the game brown beats into your head what it wants you to do.snowman6251 said:
Is that truly the superior way?
There's a difference between suspension of disbelief (which btw, means accepting the in game reality as your own for a short period of time. Of course the in game reality accepts that your character CAN'T DIE) and forcing yourself to feel fear at will without any reason.solidstatemind said:
Hey, if you can control your emotions like that, awesome for you, but it says nothing for the quality of game design. Fact is Bioshock (and MANY other games) give you NOTHING to fear. You can talk about how you got scared anyways to your hearts content, and it won't change that.
Don't sweat it. No disclaimers needed here.solidstatemind said:
Are you sure you're arguing AGAINST me? Isn't the usual chekpoint filled, try the same 5 minute segment over and over again for an hour game the one that measure your endurance? Isn't "you messed up this, do it again and again and again" the way one trains a simple animal how to do a task? When you trrain a dog to go through a circuit, you don't train him to do the whole course at once. You train each step one by one first, make sure he gets it right.solidstatemind said:
You'll have an easier time training a dog to play Bioshock (where if you move foward and push the shooot button for a long enough time, you WILL win eventually) than training a child to play Demon's Souls.
Fact is, anyone who's played the game can attest to this, you DON'T die as often as you do in games like God of War. The difference is the deaths MATTER here. You fear them, you do your best to dodge them, and when you die in a place, you make damn well sure you don't do it again.
It is rare that one dies in the same spot more than once. Thus the game teaches you without repetition...
Who's proving anything to anyone?solidstatemind said:
Although if you wanna know the difference, it's simple. You play, say, Call of Duty, and you can get past 80% of the game normally, and the last 20% by the infinite monkeys and infinite typewriters method of gameplay. And plenty of people HAVE. I doubt anyone's passed a single stage of Demon's Souls without getting genuinely better. I doubt anyone's passes a stage based entirely on luck.
I'm not talking about, as a player, proving myself anyone's better. I'm talking about as GAME DESIGN, having player victory based solely on player skill is superior to having it based on luck and willingness to try the same 5 minute segment over and over again until the dice line up.
Despite popular belief, I'm a busy man. I work 40 hour weeks on top of some semblance of a social life my girlfriend insists on us having. I also have little patience for repetition. I'd rather walk for an hour than sit in trafic for an hour. So repeating the same 5 minute piece of a game over and over again until the AI feels like being nice, or I luck out enough last minute dodges is not my style.
The more I read, the more I'm convinced you never played the game. On ym first playthrough, I had to redo maybe half the stages. And even those maybe one or two were redone more than twice.solidstatemind said:
It's not about repetition like people seem to think.
The game's harsh punishment for death is offset by death being easily avoidable for someone with care and patience. Hand-eye coordination helps, but not running blindly around the corner will keep you alive far more often than quick dodging will...
I think the problem with an 18 rating in games, is the same problem with the AO (or is it A?) rating in America. Stores will refuse out-right to stock the product because of fears that it may be sold to people who are under-aged.
Instead of an age rating, instead of slapping higher and higher age ratings and guessing "well, this will solve it", maybe we need to stick to Film ratings but state on the front cover what is in the game? Maybe instead of mothers going out, picking up a game little Johnny at home wants so much (oh never-mind reading everything through), they acknowledge fully without having to read the back that the game contains sex, violence and so on. Maybe small ratings of the excessiveness of each of the "nasty things"? Or maybe I'm just over-complicating it, who knows?
Personally though, we need to stop sitting on our high-horse. Computer games aren't going to turn children into violent creatures who stalk the night kicking cats, unless people's parents forget to teach their children this important lesson. However, at least personally, parents are becoming more and more laid back in their discipline. I'm not saying go force children to their rooms without food or water with nothing to do for not saying grace at a meal. However, if a child acts out at school or at home at all, maybe smashes something or tells a teacher to die in a fire, then discipline needs to be up-held. Just sending the child to their room to play games with hopes that they'll change and be a good child in the future isn't the way to do it. It was never the way to do it ever.
The way I see it is there are two parts for someone to become anti-social. The "reasoning" and the "inspiration". Now, for the reasoning to occur, there needs to be no moral boundaries stopping them. However, since parents don't know how to discipline their kids, this isn't happening. The other one is inspiration. Now, stopping inspiration is harder than you think. You'd need to cut out all media and maybe you stand half a chance, and you don't need to be a professor of sociology or psychology to know that it's borderline impossible without causing major mental stagnation and development problems.
Instead of an age rating, instead of slapping higher and higher age ratings and guessing "well, this will solve it", maybe we need to stick to Film ratings but state on the front cover what is in the game? Maybe instead of mothers going out, picking up a game little Johnny at home wants so much (oh never-mind reading everything through), they acknowledge fully without having to read the back that the game contains sex, violence and so on. Maybe small ratings of the excessiveness of each of the "nasty things"? Or maybe I'm just over-complicating it, who knows?
Personally though, we need to stop sitting on our high-horse. Computer games aren't going to turn children into violent creatures who stalk the night kicking cats, unless people's parents forget to teach their children this important lesson. However, at least personally, parents are becoming more and more laid back in their discipline. I'm not saying go force children to their rooms without food or water with nothing to do for not saying grace at a meal. However, if a child acts out at school or at home at all, maybe smashes something or tells a teacher to die in a fire, then discipline needs to be up-held. Just sending the child to their room to play games with hopes that they'll change and be a good child in the future isn't the way to do it. It was never the way to do it ever.
The way I see it is there are two parts for someone to become anti-social. The "reasoning" and the "inspiration". Now, for the reasoning to occur, there needs to be no moral boundaries stopping them. However, since parents don't know how to discipline their kids, this isn't happening. The other one is inspiration. Now, stopping inspiration is harder than you think. You'd need to cut out all media and maybe you stand half a chance, and you don't need to be a professor of sociology or psychology to know that it's borderline impossible without causing major mental stagnation and development problems.
There would have to be some sort of filter, perhaps blocking specific phrases, otherwise he'd literally spend all his time sorting through his mail (I can assure you a great many vocal Australians would email him, most of which would be abusive dribble).williebaz said:
Did you even listen to what he said in his review? It was something like "Yes the game is difficult but it doesn't seem like I've been given much of a chance here" he is saying it's a bad game because they made it hard on purpose, if im playing a game and i cant beat a certain part and have to repeat it alot it doesn't seem very entertaining. Progressing through a game and getting to the ending with a challenge is entertaining but if that doesn't seem achievable then what's the point in continuing?Telekinesis said: