Escapist Expo: My Favorite Game
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While we're on the subject of Final Fantasy, what you said about FFX really made me smile. Now I don't feel quite so alone in thinking Tidus's awkward laughter was simply awkward, not ear-piercingly horrendous. How that one scene became so infamous is beyond me, but then again a lot of things are.Graham_LRR said:All those things are true.Scrustle said:
I still love that game though, I even said it in that CheckPoint episode. It's nostalgia, logic has no place here
Thanks for making my day! And thank you Team Hollywood for uploading these!
JRPGs are a bit of a mixed bag with me. As a whole series, I've only ever really been able to get into Final Fantasy, the Tales games, and Kingdom Hearts, and I've been trying to get into Persona lately but keep getting distracted by other things. (Er, and Pokemon if you count that, I suppose.)Scrustle said:
I think one of the biggest problems with JRPGs is that they require a large amount of time to really get into them, even when compared to more 'Western' RPGs like The Witcher or Dragon Age. It's a significant time investment, and they usually seem to lose steam about a quarter or halfway through and then it takes too long for most of them to get interesting again. And as Graham and Paul talked about in one of the other panels that's been posted on the website, some JRPGs just adopt the most asinine and archaic combat systems that require a damn PhD in Astrophysics to navigate properly (which is why I like the relative simplicity of Tales, FF, and KH).
If I didn't keep getting distracted, I'd be working on Darksiders 2. I've been trying to clear out a bit of my backlog first though, still working on Alice: Madness Returns. As far as Zelda is concerned, I've never been too interested in it. Wind Waker was amazing, and I always got stuck in the Water Temple of Ocarina, but I couldn't get anywhere in Majora's Mask and I've never really been all that interested in the rest of the franchise.
Don't lie to yourself, the only reason people around here have heard of Okami is because of Daystar. >.>
I've actually recently gotten Muramasa, because I got Odin Sphere on the PSN and wanted to check out its 'spiritual sequel'. Haven't played it much yet though, for previously stated reasons. I can agree to a point on No More Heroes, but I think that it's a relatively niche title, and I'm not sure how much better it would have fared being built from the ground up for the PS3/360. Personally, I'm not too much of a fan of the style of humor they used, but I can agree that it was a pretty solid game.
I loved Fable, but the lack of an Xbox 360 back when it was released prevented me from maintaining any interest in the series after I did get a 360.
Eh, it's more about who you bring up those titles around. A lot of people like to blame Halo for making the Health-Regening, Two-Gun Toting, Slowly-Ambling Space Marine shooter all the rage. But that franchise was one of the reasons I ended up buying an Xbox 360. And the first Crysis is generally regarded well, but I consider the second one to be better, which is apparently heresy among Crysis fans because it was 'dumbed down' for the consoles. (And I consider Crysis Warhead to be the best out of all three, but apparently only four people in the world played it so nobody ever brings it up, ever.)
Jim, thank you for mentioning Metal Gear Solid. It gets so much hate aimed towards it (mostly fairly, those cutscenes are ridiculous), but it's great.
shrekfan246 said:
From what I've heard about the Tales series it seems like something I might like. The real time combat and the art style look really interesting, and I hear they're among the best JRPGs out there. I've never really been that familiar with Kingdom Hearts despite hearing about them a lot. The combat in them looks really cool. I can't get past all the Disney stuff though. There's only so much of that I can take. That's why FFV13 looks to me like one of the only FF titles I would ever find interesting, if it ever even comes out. That's supposed to have a very similar combat system to KH since it's made by the same people, right?
I find it strange that I've never really had a problem with the Water Temple in OoT. Inside Jabu Jabu pissed me off, but I got through the Water Temple really smoothly, apart from the underwater combat and that god damned whirlpool room. But that kind of stuff I kind of expect from a game of that age. I never really experienced the horror that most people seem to have at that point though.
And who of us round here hasn't heard of Daystar or his evangelical love for Okami? I also preach The Gospel of the White Wolf around my social circles. You also find plenty of people in the gaming media talking about it a lot. It comes up a lot in pretty much every circle of gamers who's interest in the medium goes beyond the most mainstream releases.
I think NMH could have found a broader appeal if it was given the chance. Some of the more subtle parts to it might be lost on most people, but I think there's a sizeable audience for the insane gleeful chaos of the game. Plus, you cut people up with a laser sword! Maybe the gameplay would need some more polish, but I can see it happening. As for finding a home on the PS3 or 360, I think it might be better suited to the PS3 (although of course I would love it on both). In fact it did come out on PS3. I think that had more to do with the Move controller than bringing the game to a more mainstream audience though.
I've never played Odin Sphere. I hear that it's supposed to be more of an RPG than Muramasa, even though Muramasa has some pretty large RPG elements to it. Maybe that's not really true and people just don't know how to define the games properly. From the little I've seen of the game it seems to be almost identical to Muramasa, in visual style and basic gameplay at least. I've thought about getting it but I'm unsure. I mean I've already played Muramasa, I don't want to just play another game that's exactly the same. I already have that.
Ignorance is bliss my friend.
I think this hatred towards mechanics like health regen and a two gun limit are stupid. They're not dumbing down the game or anything like that, they're purposeful design choices made deliberately to create a certain type of play.
It's true that slowing down the game was done to make it easier to play on a controller, but so what? Slower games aren't necessarily bad. And I think Halo is still a pretty fast paced game anyway. If they made it as fast as a game like Quake then you simply couldn't use a controller.
The two gun limit adds a layer of tactics in to gameplay. You have to select what guns you take to suit your play style or what hazards are coming up next. It's also done to create proper pacing in the game. A game can become really unbalanced if the designer has to build a level without knowing what weapons a player might have.
The same can also be said of the health regen. You have no idea if a player is going to have loads of health or next to none coming up to a certain point of a level. It might be completely unfair and impossible, or completely unfair and boringly easy. Although I admit the idea of healing gunshot wounds by running away and hiding in a corner for 15 seconds is pretty silly. That never annoyed me playing a game though. Is it any less realistic or immersion breaking than running around at top speed for half an hour while your internal organs are all trailing along at your feet? In those games you're exactly the same if you're on 100HP or 1HP. In games with health regen you're only really at low health when you're doing terrible and you're under a rain of gunfire. You need to react at that point. When you regenerate your health you also gather your thoughts to plan a different way of attacking. They happen together in tandem in an intuitive way.
All it really is is a different way of dealing with failure states. With static HP systems it doesn't really matter how or where you lose all your health. Once it's gone you fail and you have to start over. With a health regen system you only fail at a place where you're actually doing badly. Only at the point where you are taking too many hits and not playing smart enough. When you work out what you're doing wrong you will be able to face the next hazard without still carrying the burden of almost failing the last time. You won't be screwed over on a part where you know you should be able to win. They're simply different systems. One may be more forgiving than the other but I wouldn't call either of them "better". It doesn't make the game worse, it's simply a different design philosophy.
Cory, Y U NOT JOIN the band?
OT: I have around teh same age as most of them, and I find weird to see not much came from the Famicom/NES era, still, it was one of the best panels I've seen so far, I still need to see Fanboyism, and while I expect a lot of fun, this one felt like the most insightful to the media and to the members of the Escapists as well.
OT: I have around teh same age as most of them, and I find weird to see not much came from the Famicom/NES era, still, it was one of the best panels I've seen so far, I still need to see Fanboyism, and while I expect a lot of fun, this one felt like the most insightful to the media and to the members of the Escapists as well.
Watching this I am somewhat disappointed in regards to the time frame of the games they picked, but then again it just goes to show my age, having started back in the early eighties with spectrum 48 and C64s. Of course any game a person chooses is highly subjective as that game made a profound mark on you and for very personal reasons.
My choice is X-Wing by Lucasarts from 1993, the reasons are varied, but it pretty much boils down to immersion factor. Before it all the flight and space flight games I had played on computer, had a element of imagining it being in a X-Wing fighter, miming the fanfare from Star Wars, while zipping along in a spacecraft. Then to suddenly be in an X-Wing, with sampled sound effects and music from the movies, now I didn't have to mime the star wars music any longer while zipping along in MY X-Wing.
Admittedly I am a huge Star Wars fan, so that contributed to my enjoyment, but the difficulty of the game, of always being the underdog, and the over all story arch, made every mission memorable. I still remember my greatest moment of the game, which came in a mission against a Star Destroyer. This my take a little explaining first, so please bare with me, but in X-Wing, SDs are extremely hard enemies. They are impervious pretty much to any damage you can dish out and they also have 72 TIE fighters it can send against you so you and it has some 60-120 laser cannons that shoot at you, were more then 3 hits mean you are pretty much dead. Star Destroyers are mean, and you never ever attack one!
In this mission, some 50+ mission into the game, and the first ever to attack a SD directly. My flight group was tasked with taking its shields down, and I had died like 20 times trying to shoot at the designated spot that my targeting computer had given me. All the tricks I tried and had learned over the course of the game didn't help as the shields regenerated faster then me and my AI wing men could damage the shields.
Then I remembered a scene from Episode 6 "Return of the Jedi" where a X-Wing is attacking a SD. In desperation figured I may as well try it. Aiming my torpedoes manually, just like Luke did in Episode 4, I aimed them at the two towers on top of the bridge. To my amazement they were destructible and not only that, it dropped the shield of the SD! That was just blew my mind away. Discovering that what worked in the movies worked in the game just made it so much more real, I can still remember today that very moment almost 20 years later.
Today I don't think the game would have the same impact on either me or other people. The reason being the common practice of having media tie-ins is very well established. Also the Star Wars library has become huge, then it was tiny compared to today. But back then fans of the movies were starved for anything having to do with Star Wars, and back then Lucasarts was a mark of quality on any game.
My choice is X-Wing by Lucasarts from 1993, the reasons are varied, but it pretty much boils down to immersion factor. Before it all the flight and space flight games I had played on computer, had a element of imagining it being in a X-Wing fighter, miming the fanfare from Star Wars, while zipping along in a spacecraft. Then to suddenly be in an X-Wing, with sampled sound effects and music from the movies, now I didn't have to mime the star wars music any longer while zipping along in MY X-Wing.
Admittedly I am a huge Star Wars fan, so that contributed to my enjoyment, but the difficulty of the game, of always being the underdog, and the over all story arch, made every mission memorable. I still remember my greatest moment of the game, which came in a mission against a Star Destroyer. This my take a little explaining first, so please bare with me, but in X-Wing, SDs are extremely hard enemies. They are impervious pretty much to any damage you can dish out and they also have 72 TIE fighters it can send against you so you and it has some 60-120 laser cannons that shoot at you, were more then 3 hits mean you are pretty much dead. Star Destroyers are mean, and you never ever attack one!
In this mission, some 50+ mission into the game, and the first ever to attack a SD directly. My flight group was tasked with taking its shields down, and I had died like 20 times trying to shoot at the designated spot that my targeting computer had given me. All the tricks I tried and had learned over the course of the game didn't help as the shields regenerated faster then me and my AI wing men could damage the shields.
Then I remembered a scene from Episode 6 "Return of the Jedi" where a X-Wing is attacking a SD. In desperation figured I may as well try it. Aiming my torpedoes manually, just like Luke did in Episode 4, I aimed them at the two towers on top of the bridge. To my amazement they were destructible and not only that, it dropped the shield of the SD! That was just blew my mind away. Discovering that what worked in the movies worked in the game just made it so much more real, I can still remember today that very moment almost 20 years later.
Today I don't think the game would have the same impact on either me or other people. The reason being the common practice of having media tie-ins is very well established. Also the Star Wars library has become huge, then it was tiny compared to today. But back then fans of the movies were starved for anything having to do with Star Wars, and back then Lucasarts was a mark of quality on any game.
I'm tired of people acting like Mass Effect 3 " edited " ending is the first game to have the ending changed Fallout 3
I loved Gavin's comment about playing the Final Fantasy 13-2 demo. My friend bought the game for after our exams finished as a bit of a time sink and he spent a couple of days playing it. Whenever any of us (my housemates and I) went into the living room we would just go "What the fuck are you watching?" This continued even after the first time we asked that.
Also, thanks for posting all these videos, they're great to watch and I'm getting a nice big extra dose of 2 of my favourite cynical Brits.
Also, thanks for posting all these videos, they're great to watch and I'm getting a nice big extra dose of 2 of my favourite cynical Brits.
The first game that I have loved was Sid Meier's Alpha Centuri, it hs a fantastic storyline, the units you attack with are fun and it has amazing exploration. Also Bastion because the only criticism I have for it is the length. Everything else is beautiful, the fighting, the narrative, the naration, the characters the music. Awww I need to at it now.
He almost blew my headphones up in the 27th minute.beetrain said:
Susan Arendt said:
[sub][sub]The joke here being that about one second after this frame, the heavy gets the crap kicked out of him[/sub][/sub]