Everything you know about a game you've never actually played

[BrawlMan]

Prototype 2 - A bad fan fic that derails Alex Mercer. Good thing it is not canon.

Huh?

I loved Prototype 1 and greatly anticipated 2, but it was ultimately underwhelming insofar as it did very little to advance the IP gameplay-wise and the switch from the antihero Mercer to a strict protagonist in Heller was extremely cognitively dissonant given they were both equally morally ambiguous, but ?not canon?? As far as I?m aware, the IP has been iced, so without a Prototype 3 in the wings to right the ship, how do you figure 50% of the ?franchise? isn?t canon?

And I?d also argue calling it ?bad fan fic? isn?t quite right; a true fan of everything the first game is wouldn?t dream of taking it in the direction the devs actually did. The devs took everything great about the first game (i.e.: amoral, frenetic, psychopathic, visceral, gooey, over-the-top power fantasy) and tried to wrap it in a hero?s skin; no one wanted that. Playing as Mercer was fun; playing as Heller, while still mechanically fun, made no sense; the man on a noble revenge quest in the cutscenes did NOT match the ruthless monster the player controlled during gameplay.

Just so we're clear, I like to pretend to the second game doesn't exist. The term for that is fanon discontinuity. To me, prototype 2 felt like a bad fanfic. let's replace a character we know next to nothing about and we're just supposed to like and assume he's better than Alex Mercer, while derailing the protagonist from their last game. Sounds like bad fanfic territory to me. Everything you described as why I dislike prototype 2. From hell ertz, to streamlining the mechanics and removing alot of the variety and movesets the player could do.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Prototype 2 - A bad fan fic that derails Alex Mercer. Good thing it is not canon.

Huh?

I loved Prototype 1 and greatly anticipated 2, but it was ultimately underwhelming insofar as it did very little to advance the IP gameplay-wise and the switch from the antihero Mercer to a strict protagonist in Heller was extremely cognitively dissonant given they were both equally morally ambiguous, but ?not canon?? As far as I?m aware, the IP has been iced, so without a Prototype 3 in the wings to right the ship, how do you figure 50% of the ?franchise? isn?t canon?

And I?d also argue calling it ?bad fan fic? isn?t quite right; a true fan of everything the first game is wouldn?t dream of taking it in the direction the devs actually did. The devs took everything great about the first game (i.e.: amoral, frenetic, psychopathic, visceral, gooey, over-the-top power fantasy) and tried to wrap it in a hero?s skin; no one wanted that. Playing as Mercer was fun; playing as Heller, while still mechanically fun, made no sense; the man on a noble revenge quest in the cutscenes did NOT match the ruthless monster the player controlled during gameplay.

Just so we're clear, I like to pretend to the second game doesn't exist. The term for that is fanon discontinuity. To me, prototype 2 felt like a bad fanfic. let's replace a character we know next to nothing about and we're just supposed to like and assume he's better than Alex Mercer, while derailing the protagonist from their last game. Sounds like bad fanfic territory to me. Everything you described as why I dislike prototype 2. From hell ertz, to streamlining the mechanics and removing alot of the variety and movesets the player could do.

Ah, gotcha; we?re on the same page, except I actually played through P2.

 

[Dalisclock]

Dark Souls:
Not your daddy's videogame.

Ironically, one could make the argument it owes a lot to both Castlevania/Metriodvanias and The Legend of Zelda. Which considering how old both of those series are, would make them "your dads game".

Hell, Bloodborne pratically is a 3D, modern take on Castlevania in everything but name. It even has a creepy haunted castle inhabited by Vampires(Castle Cainhurst).

 

[Smithnikov_v1legacy]

Street Fighter V

You are only allowed to use one of three characters without enduring massive accusations of using meta (?), overpowered, and "scrub" characters. Also, if you aren't a master of 40 plus string combos with those characters, you will get bodied in seconds.

Dark Souls

I'm apparently not even a REAL GAMER for not playing it. Supposed to be hard.

 

[Dalisclock]

Street Fighter V

You are only allowed to use one of three characters without enduring massive accusations of using meta (?), overpowered, and "scrub" characters. Also, if you aren't a master of 40 plus string combos with those characters, you will get bodied in seconds.

Dark Souls

I'm apparently not even a REAL GAMER for not playing it. Supposed to be hard.

You have to play it AND GIT GUD. If you think it's too hard or use certain OP builds, you're a scrub and unworthy of it's greatness.

Because the challenge is the most important thing about Dark Souls, not the level design, lore, characters atmosphere, etc.

/sarcasm

 

[Smithnikov_v1legacy]

Street Fighter V

You are only allowed to use one of three characters without enduring massive accusations of using meta (?), overpowered, and "scrub" characters. Also, if you aren't a master of 40 plus string combos with those characters, you will get bodied in seconds.

Dark Souls

I'm apparently not even a REAL GAMER for not playing it. Supposed to be hard.

You have to play it AND GIT GUD. If you think it's too hard or use certain OP builds, you're a scrub and unworthy of it's greatness.

Because the challenge is the most important thing about Dark Souls, not the level design, lore, characters atmosphere, etc.

/sarcasm

Yea, I don't take accusations of GIT GUD with any grain of salt.

I beat Bayou Billy without cheats. Keep your Dark Souls.

 

[MrCalavera_v1legacy]

Outer Wilds
Like No Man's Sky, but GOOD.

No Man's Sky
Like Elite: Dangerous, but BAD.

Eliteangerous
Like Euro Truck Simulator 2, but in SPACE!

Euro Truck Simulator 2
Like Smokey and the Bandit, but without guns.

American Truck Simulator
Like Smokey and the Bandit.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Assassins creed Odyssey

Like Assassins creed 1 but with more useless gimmicks, a story that will never culminate in a modern day battle between assassins and templars with a assassin trained up by their ancestors knowledge like the original indicated because that would lose them revenue and a big ol bunch of microtransactions.

 

[Dalisclock]

Street Fighter V

You are only allowed to use one of three characters without enduring massive accusations of using meta (?), overpowered, and "scrub" characters. Also, if you aren't a master of 40 plus string combos with those characters, you will get bodied in seconds.

Dark Souls

I'm apparently not even a REAL GAMER for not playing it. Supposed to be hard.

You have to play it AND GIT GUD. If you think it's too hard or use certain OP builds, you're a scrub and unworthy of it's greatness.

Because the challenge is the most important thing about Dark Souls, not the level design, lore, characters atmosphere, etc.

/sarcasm

Yea, I don't take accusations of GIT GUD with any grain of salt.

I beat Bayou Billy without cheats. Keep your Dark Souls.

But did you beat battletoads?

Trick question. Nobody has beaten battletoads. Apparently the people who made the game can't beat battletoads.

Assassins creed Odyssey

Like Assassins creed 1 but with more useless gimmicks, a story that will never culminate in a modern day battle between assassins and templars with a assassin trained up by their ancestors knowledge like the original indicated because that would lose them revenue and a big ol bunch of microtransactions.

Technically that's the entire series, not specific to Odyssey.

I mean, at one point it was supposed to least Desmond becoming the UBERASSASIN but then the guy who created the series left and the planned plot progression went off the rails to allow for endless sequels.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Resident Evil has better female characters.

What, dense and determined? Dense sucks, and determined is just being the protagonist.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Is it me or is this more of a 'make snide remarks about games you've never played' thread.

 

[Smithnikov_v1legacy]

[But did you beat battletoads?

I used an analog stick over the D-pad for the next to last level (no way to change direction fast enough without it), so I did, but that might get an asterisk next that victory.

 

[BrawlMan]

Resident Evil has better female characters.

What, dense and determined? Dense sucks, and determined is just being the protagonist.

You described really only Helena Harper. A character most fans don't even like. I am indifferent towards her, but you won't be seeing her again any time soon. None of the other female characters are really that dense unless you're describing Jill from OG Resident Evil 1 (not so much in the Remake). But nearly everyone was dense in that game. She sure as hell ain't dense in RE3, RE5, and the first Revelations. Most of the characters in Last Of Us, regardless of gender, I was either apathetic or disliked. I will admit that began to dislike Ada in 4, 6, and that 2nd cgi movie. Capcom no longer knows what to do with that character. The "romance" between her and Leon I stopped caring for since 4 came out. Yet, as much as I dislike the current Ada, she is not what I would call dense.

EDIT: I've beaten Battletoads (NES & Genesis version) and Comix Zone without save states or cheats. Comix Zone is even harder than Battletoads and Bayou Billy. The most you could get were three lives. Nothing else.

 

[Yoshi178]

They lied when they said it was the "Final" Fantasy.

 

[BrawlMan]

They lied when they said it was the "Final" Fantasy.

Was it really a lie at the time? When originally FF was going to be Squaresoft's last game before going out of business. That is until FF saved them from going bankrupt.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Resident Evil has better female characters.

What, dense and determined? Dense sucks, and determined is just being the protagonist.

You described really only Helena Harper. A character most fans don't even like. I am indifferent towards her, but you won't be seeing her again any time soon. None of the other female characters are really that dense unless you're describing Jill from OG Resident Evil 1 (not so much in the Remake). But nearly everyone was dense in that game. She sure as hell ain't dense in RE3, RE5, and the first Revelations. Most of the characters in Last Of Us, regardless of gender, I was either apathetic or disliked. I will admit that began to dislike Ada in 4, 6, and that 2nd cgi movie. Capcom no longer knows what to do with that character. The "romance" between her and Leon I stopped caring for since 4 came out. Yet, as much as I dislike the current Ada, she is not what I would call dense.

I'm playing the remaster right now. So far Special Tactics and Rescue Service agent Jill has fallen 3 times on her ass as she backs away from enemies, has forgotten her radio doesn't work (twice), has split up 3 times from the dude that keeps saving her and of the only other two people in the house she trusts the wrong one and suspects the other one. Coupled with that big blank stare of hers and her repetitive "What's going on?", she doesn't make a bright or capable impression.

As for every other game, she cuts out the "dense" and just sticks to "determined". By RE5 she isn't even a character, just a plot point. She's a mute, brainwashed super soldier that gets maybe 2 scenes as her "old self" before the game ends. Once more she's purely reactionary to whatever's going on at the moment. I think Wesker was escaping, or maybe a bomb was about to go off. So her personality reflected that. Same with Claire, Helena, Sherry. Their personality is entirely circumstantial, swinging back and forth between "what's going on" and "we have to do this". I don't think you could come up with a single defining adjective for any of them, the thing that might betray a semblance of humanity or personality.

Ada gets one adjective. She's sassy. And that's it. Not a compelling trait, especially when it feels completely unearned in every situation she finds herself in.

Like even if you don't like TLoU characters at least they had personalities with identifiable human traits you could pin down with adjectives. RE characters don't have anything going for them except maybe Leon in RE4, where he gets to emote as a brash, cocky B-movie type hero.

 

[BrawlMan]

Resident Evil has better female characters.

What, dense and determined? Dense sucks, and determined is just being the protagonist.

You described really only Helena Harper. A character most fans don't even like. I am indifferent towards her, but you won't be seeing her again any time soon. None of the other female characters are really that dense unless you're describing Jill from OG Resident Evil 1 (not so much in the Remake). But nearly everyone was dense in that game. She sure as hell ain't dense in RE3, RE5, and the first Revelations. Most of the characters in Last Of Us, regardless of gender, I was either apathetic or disliked. I will admit that began to dislike Ada in 4, 6, and that 2nd cgi movie. Capcom no longer knows what to do with that character. The "romance" between her and Leon I stopped caring for since 4 came out. Yet, as much as I dislike the current Ada, she is not what I would call dense.

I'm playing the remaster right now. So far Special Tactics and Rescue Service agent Jill has fallen 3 times on her ass as she backs away from enemies, has forgotten her radio doesn't work (twice), has split up 3 times from the dude that keeps saving her and of the only other two people in the house she trusts the wrong one and suspects the other one. Coupled with that big blank stare of hers and her repetitive "What's going on?", she doesn't make a bright or capable impression.

As for every other game, she cuts out the "dense" and just sticks to "determined". By RE5 she isn't even a character, just a plot point. She's a mute, brainwashed super soldier that gets maybe 2 scenes as her "old self" before the game ends. Once more she's purely reactionary to whatever's going on at the moment. I think Wesker was escaping, or maybe a bomb was about to go off. So her personality reflected that. Same with Claire, Helena, Sherry. Their personality is entirely circumstantial, swinging back and forth between "what's going on" and "we have to do this". I don't think you could come up with a single defining adjective for any of them, the thing that might betray a semblance of humanity or personality.

Ada gets one adjective. She's sassy. And that's it. Not a compelling trait, especially when it feels completely unearned in every situation she finds herself in.

Like even if you don't like TLoU characters at least they had personalities with identifiable human traits you could pin down with adjectives. RE characters don't have anything going for them except maybe Leon in RE4, where he gets to emote as a brash, cocky B-movie type hero.

You have point about REmake, but that is why I said not so much. If you missed the implication, I meant both Chris and Jill have their dense moments in either version, but REmake does not have it as much. At least Jill stomps the zombie coming out of the bathtub. Chris just stands there and stares until the player takes control. In RE3, you would be determined too if you're trying to escape a zombie apocalypse in your hometown that is about to be nuked while being chased by a almost indestructible monster. RE5 Jill shows a bit more personality when you play her scenario after beating the main campaign play Before the Nightmare and other one I can't think of when she teams up with Josh. It's not the most, but I appreciate the attempt.

Leon went from naive rookie to badass agent, and cynical in Vendetta. Though Rebecca and Chris (ironic due to going a similar phase) snap him out of it.

Claire has mostly been the same, but that is not a bad thing. She's mother hen/big sister type of character. See any of her interaction with Sherry or Moira Burton. Then again, she was a partial reference to Ripley so that was a given.

Chris was mostly static until 5, 6, and Revelations. Hell, it's why most people did not like Chris or found him too generic/boring until those games came out.

The only ones really not having much personality/blank slate are the dude from the first Gun Survivor, the two protags (who are expies Leon and Ada) from Dead Aim, and maybe Sheva or Ethan if you're feeling that cynical.

The problem I had with Last of Us, is while characters had distinct personalities, it was mostly some variation of an asshole, jerkass, or douche-bag. I know it's a zombie apocalypse and everything, but the game came off as just another zombie entertainment where everyone is an asshole, dark, depressing, and gritty with the same shit we've seen a million times before. At least with RE, you can compare and contrast the character of whatever flavor or at least had villains with different personalities or ambitions.

 

[Dalisclock]

They lied when they said it was the "Final" Fantasy.

Was it really a lie at the time? When originally FF was going to be Squaresoft's last game before going out of business. That is until FF saved them from going bankrupt.

That's what I've always heard. It was the last chance to keep Square from going under and it turned out to be a hit. Thus, because name recognition, the Final Fantasy brand has stuck no matter what changes.

Hell, I find it amusing that Octopath Traveler is more like an old style Final Fantasy game then any game after FF9. It's just missing the name.

 

[Casual Shinji]

The problem I had with Last of Us, is while characters had distinct personalities, it was mostly some variation of an asshole, jerkass, or douche-bag. I know it's a zombie apocalypse and everything, but the game came off as just another zombie entertainment where everyone is an asshole, dark, depressing, and gritty with the same shit we've seen a million times before. At least with RE, you can compare and contrast the character of whatever flavor or at least had villains with different personalities or ambitions.

What about Henry, Sam, Tommy, and Maria? I mean, I could sorta see your point with Joel and Bill, although it's hardly a detriment to their character. Ellie is a very outgoing person, and while Tess starts off as a hardboiled *****, that quickly changes past a certain point. If the tone of the world is too depressing for your liking, sure, but I'd have to dispute that the characters are just depressed assholes throughout the game. There's plenty of instances where that isn't the case.

And I mean, I like some of the Resident Evil characters, but among the girls there really isn't much of any distinction between Jill, Claire, Sheva, Helena, or grown-up Sherry. I guess Claire wants to help Sherry, Sheva wants to help Chris, and Helena wants to help Leon. I guess maybe the one (good guy ) female character with with some personality is Ashley, because she's childish, screamy, and the only person in the Resi universe who actively asks for sex.

 

[BrawlMan]

The problem I had with Last of Us, is while characters had distinct personalities, it was mostly some variation of an asshole, jerkass, or douche-bag. I know it's a zombie apocalypse and everything, but the game came off as just another zombie entertainment where everyone is an asshole, dark, depressing, and gritty with the same shit we've seen a million times before. At least with RE, you can compare and contrast the character of whatever flavor or at least had villains with different personalities or ambitions.

What about Henry, Sam, Tommy, and Maria? I mean, I could sorta see your point with Joel and Bill, although it's hardly a detriment to their character. Ellie is a very outgoing person, and while Tess starts off as a hardboiled *****, that quickly changes past a certain point. If the tone of the world is too depressing for your liking, sure, but I'd have to dispute that the characters are just depressed assholes throughout the game. There's plenty of instances where that isn't the case.

And I mean, I like some of the Resident Evil characters, but among the girls there really isn't much of any distinction between Jill, Claire, Sheva, Helena, or grown-up Sherry. I guess Claire wants to help Sherry, Sheva wants to help Chris, and Helena wants to help Leon. I guess maybe the one (good guy ) female character with with some personality is Ashley, because she's childish, screamy, and the only person in the Resi universe who actively asks for sex.

Don't most of the kinder characters die or killed off in some fashion? I am not denying those characters are kind, but it's been so long I honestly don't remember. I'll just come out and say I find characters in RE more interesting than the LofUs. More power to any of you guys and gals if it's the opposite. I've should have been more clear, but Ellie I did not exactly have a problem with, but I was not that interested in her. Joel, while interesting as a protagonist, gave me the feeling "Whelp, I'm gonna be stuck with this douche bag for next 10-12 hours". Oh, zombie fatiuge was setting in at point when the Last Of Us first came out in 2013. I did not have a PS3 any way. This does not add a lot to my problems with the game, but something extra.