Enslaved As It Should Have Been

[MasterChief892039]

I'd play that game. Hell, I'd probably play it without it being set in space.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

...That actually sounds like a neat game concept. I'd play it.

 

[beema]

Are you seriously still harping on how Enslaved is not like Journey to the West? Who cares!? How about you critique the actual game? I'm pretty sure most of the video game buying public out there has no idea what Journey to the West is. Heck, I consider myself a fairly well-educated and cultured person, and I had never heard of it until this game came out. Why are you so singularly focused on this one tiny insignificant aspect of the game? I don't think the game was ever advertised or purported to be a direct adaptation of the book. If it had been, then you'd have something to be mad about, but it wasn't.
Did you throw a fit because Castlevania wasn't a 100% faithful translation of Bram Stoker's Dracula? Did you flip out because God of War completely reinterpreted Greek myth?
Oh, and to top it off, you've never read Journey to the West?
That's just great. Shut up Yahtzee. I usually go along with your BS, but this is just plain obnoxious.

 

[Rakor]

probably better that tripitaka be a human, makes him the wuss he is in the book

with the whole space theme this can make issues like the river to cross but instead its tripitaka lost his spacesuit or something

I see the purpose of making tripitaka a chick just so its not one big sausagefest, but he's supposed to be a goodhearted wussy dude

hmm, then maybe at the end super alien tech lets monkey turn into a biological creature

 

[Ampersand]

I have a question.
Why do you seem to have a problem with men who are strong looking strong? Seriously you bring it up in almost every review.
You can't have climbing trees, lifting heavy things and fighting giant robots as regular parts of your life style without gaining some serious muscle mass.

This seems especially ironic to me seen as how you so openly object to wimpy looking teen aged boys swinging giant buster swords in JRPGs.

Let me break it to you, someone who is actually as strong as those characters are supposed to be would still not be as big as many of the videogame heroes. They would probably look more like the olympic weightlifters in the 105kg class - like this guy:

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-08/18/content_9481161.htm

Monkey looks more the size of a bodybuilder - who aren't actually strong because they train in to increase the mass of their muscles rather than the strength.

In short, the body size of the characters Yatzee would call "manly" is far more realistic than both the skinny teenagers and the ultra-large macho men.

Different people have different body types, I've know people who look like monkey does, some of them where rock climbers and the rest practiced capoeira or boxing or both. All of which require speed, flexibility and strength.

There are more body types then just strong ones and weak ones, people come in all shapes and sizes.

 

[Ampersand]

I have a question.
Why do you seem to have a problem with men who are strong looking strong? Seriously you bring it up in almost every review.
You can't have climbing trees, lifting heavy things and fighting giant robots as regular parts of your life style without gaining some serious muscle mass.

This seems especially ironic to me seen as how you so openly object to wimpy looking teen aged boys swinging giant buster swords in JRPGs.

Perhaps he is growing tired of how this industry is over saturated with images of either muscle bound men or wimpy looking teen aged boys swinging buster swords. I mean that is pretty much the option you have to choose from in protagonists in order to get your game made now a days. What about other body types, you know the ones you see on a regular basis in reality?

I don't think I'd be any more conviced by a short, balding man with a beer belly swinging a buster sword either but i guess it would be more entertaining.

What i'm saying is I don't see what's wrong with designing a character so he looks like he's actually capable of what he's doing.

 

[Tjoubou]

At least his idea sounds much better than the pretty lame enslaved... Pretty similar to Mass Effect though, at least the thing about traveling around space with your ship, exploring planets and stuff.

 

[Strave]

Holy crap, Yahtzee? A game with an actual story that has gameplay mechanics that make sense, AND could be a hell of a lot of fun to play? I can scarcely believe it. Maybe all it takes to get a decent game idea out there is for the games industry to not assume all their consumers are a bunch of gibbering retards. Or maybe the industry is itself inundated with gibbering retards for writers. I prefer the former explanation.

IDEA!

You could even have a bit in a cut scene where the colonists are deciding what to do with the Monkey robot (right before they decide to shut him down for a few centuries) and one guy has the idea to install a subroutine that makes him cooperate. But they eventually decide that it's still not worth it to bother, and simply shut him down. That eliminates the question of "why didn't they think of doing that before."

This story can have actual continuity and no loose ends! It's a miracle!

 

[Neferius]

Wait! So this little gem of Interactive Storytelling was crafted by none-other than team Ninja Theory!?

Well that explains Everything!!!

I mean these were the same guys who thought (re)making Dante into a Heroin-addict would be "cool" ...how can this Game NOT be a Masterpiece

 

[Sonicron]

Solid. Now give me some decent gameplay footage and I'll gladly place a pre-order.

Oh, right. You don't know your way around anything more complex than 8-bit. Oh well.
Guess you'll have to settle for me buying Mogworld out of sheer morbid curiosity.

 

[jaketaz]

I'd play the MESS outta that game. What the hell is wrong with developers these days?
Oh, right... they have no brains or souls.

 

[badvibration]

You, sir, have been awfully creative this week. And let me say that I love it. This and the video were totally unexpected in the way that they were done and a very refreshing take on your reviews/ramblings. So thank you.

 

[Illusive DiZ]

Someone pay Yahtzee for this idea and make the damn game! the myth itself makes for compelling gameplay the way Yahtzee described it!

I know. It actually sounds better than what I just got through playing. The ending in this game didn't even make sense to me.

 

[Dirty Saint]

I demand this game.
I will pay for it and play it.
My money is yours.....

 

[mikespoff]

Now that game, I'd play!

 

[mikespoff]

... Pretty similar to Mass Effect though, at least the thing about traveling around space with your ship, exploring planets and stuff.

Umm... I think you mean "sounds like science fiction"??

 

[Oyster^^]

Weird. I can't think of any game that involves taking advantage of a robotic playable character in order to mess with the timeline like Yahtzee was talking about.

In fact, I can't really think of too many games that you play as a robot. Clank I guess? Glitch from Metal Arms? There could be some cool stuff done with that. And most lead characters don't have any personality or fleshy vulnerability anyways, so there's no loss!

It was a lot more common in the 80s, most likely because i) the whole decade was on a sci-fi kick thanks to Star Wars, both the movies and Ronald Reagan's crazy lasers in space ideas, and ii) it was easier to make appealing looking robot characters with the crude and boxy graphics at the time. So we had Robotron 2084, Vectorman, Ninja Warriors, the really bad Commodore 64 Transformers game, Alien Storm, some of the Phantasy Star games, and Mega Man.

Aha. Mega Man. Whoops.

I wasn't alive in the 80s, so I can't say I'm too familiar with any of the things you mentioned. With the exception on Mega of course.

I would think that there would be a myriad of interesting gameplay quirks and changes made available by robotic playable character. Mega Man is a great example. But I guess you can also just make you can take the nintendo route and make them out of yarn, which works too...

Also: Metal Arms was wicked. I wish blizzard hadn't eaten swingin apes

Also: This is getting quite off topic. I'll stop now

 

[pepitko]

That's actually a very solid effort at making the story. Still many games out there lack a good story. But I'm actually quite happy that there is visible progress, Fallout New Vegas had a very good story, for instnace.

 

[LostAlone]

In all honesty, Yahtzee's idea sounds a lot better than the original dross. At the very least it sounds like something I could get engaged with... Epic story line and deep characters. Could be all action, could be an RPG, could be a little of both. Could be a really good game.

As for the 'big and alarmingly bemuscled guys' thing, he keeps bringing it up because its still retarded. Even going back to the perfect example of ridiculously over the top macho-men, Duke Nukem, is actually not body-builder size. He looks pretty buff, but he also looks like like a person not a mutant.

I have NO idea why mediocre game designers keep going to the freakishly huge stereotype (and also the freakishly tiny for female co-stars) because it doesn't even look like a cartoon... cartoon artists can draw people who are in proportion.

Particularly when you look at real people who kill people for a living (Army/USMC etc) sure they are in awesome shape, but they don't look like bodybuilders. Theres a difference between being a big strong physically capable guy, and being someone who just pumps iron all day. Even then, most retard-space-marines look like your strapped two terminator era schwarzeneggers together. They don't even look like people.

What annoys me the most is that the best protagonists (JC Denton, Garett, etcetcetc) look just like regular guys. Ok maybe in good shape, but they aren't deformed. They are average height and weight. The reason why you connect with the characters is because you can project onto them and empathise with them. It also makes the character feel more 3d, because I don't just look at the character and know exactly what his deal is. When I look at a giant-muscle-guy I know that he's just going to kill things, and I'm never going to care. And I feel the developers have the same feelings. They drew the guy to tell you everything you need, so they just don't bother putting in anything that adds to him, making for a shallow game.

 

[Macq Stena]

I didn't know Escapist payed for rambling about and criticizing things you're not familiar with. Maybe I should apply.