Extra Punctuation: Battlefield 3 Is Scary

[Bishop99999999]

"Once you discount the possibility that this is supposed to be dramatic or challenging then we are left with the conclusion that this only exists for the masturbatory power fantasy."

I thought that was the point?

 

[Steve the Pocket]

Yahtzee, if I may speak directly to you for a moment in the vague hope that you still read these posts:

I would love for you or somebody equally qualified to do actual reviews of indie games more often. Right now, the attitude of the Internet towards indie games is something like "Support the independents! Buy all the things! Don't let this vibrant industry die!" when it should be more like "Hey, here are some games you might not have heard of but might like and here's why." This even extends to some of the ways they market themselves, like the Humble Indie Bundle. It makes the whole "scene" look like some sort of charity case instead of an industry that produces things to sell, and it's not hard to see how this could lead to stagnation down the line if it hasn't already.

What I'm getting at here is that we need someone like you to pick through the bargain bin that is the indie game market and separate the gold from the dross. Or, if you can't bring yourself to condemn an indie game, to at least say who among us would best appreciate which titles. It'll be good for curious potential customers, and it'll be good for the developers, even the ones you put down, because having a respected critic taking indie games seriously enough to give honest reviews will boost the cred of the whole scene.

Oh, and on a related note, the creators of "Extra Credits" (you know, that series that used to be on this site before something something bandwidth something) have started a fund for startup game developers [http://rockethub.com/projects/3074-extra-credits-indie-fund]. Basically a way for them to get the initial venture capital that they'd normally have to trade their souls to publishers for. I'd love it if you'd plug it in your column sometime, since that's pretty much the only way it'll get any real attention on this site now.

 

[SyphonX]

This is something that's bothered me for a long time now. I've grown out of the shooter phase almost entirely, though I did enjoy BF3 multiplayer with friends. It's not that fun without friends.. so I guess it just serves as a good arena for things.

The singleplayer was interesting, but mostly creepy. It has you take so many things for granted, and I've talked about the Iran connection in other forums.

When this era is reviewed by historians, the "modern warfare" games will be viewed as propaganda campaigns, because they run right along the timeline of the actual war or wars they represent. Make no mistake about it. For the most part, I think they'd be spot on.

 

[sleeky01]

You know what I find scary?

The fact that there are so many games that are glorifying war and how the people who win it are always the righteous and true ones and how it's always great to fight for your fellow man and country and whatnot.

Yes, I know that these games try to go out of their way to show the horrors of war, and how not ALL games are saying that war is awesome, but when you get right down to it, the ending scene of Blops goes on about how the military is awesome and how we'll always win, and I've heard a lot of people talk about how war is awesome and whatnot.

:/ It's actually kinda scary. Maybe I'm just being paranoid or stupid or drawing some hasty conclusions, but I feel that an oversaturation of games like CoD and Battlefield might drill into our next generation's minds that the only way this could possibly get any better is if they had real AK-47s and were shooting at real-life, breathing people in a real war.



... I'm not trying to sound like I'm criticizing the game industry or saying that video games are promoting violence or whatnot, like those idiots at Fox. Just my own opinions.

Gee.... You think Jack Thompson was right after all?

 

[SatansBestBuddy]

Funny thing, I was watching the GameTrailers BF3 review, and the end of the review was a ten second shot of your character slowly putting a knife into someone's throat while they weakly fought back until they breathed their last chocking breath.

Chilling stuff, and that one moment decided for me that I would probably never play this game, because that's just sick and I don't feel much like reenacting that one knife scene from Saving Private Ryan in gratuitous realism in a game.

 

[DioWallachia]

In the "Shooters Of Yore" Extra Puctuation article i said something like this:

"I dont undertand you sometimes Yatzee, if you are this bitter about playing these new FPS then why dont you play something good so the ignorant masses know that there is something beyond that grey wall?? I know, i know, work isnt it? But most of the time it seems that you take pleasure in playing shitty popular games to piss fanboys and then make more videos bashing the mails of them just to piss them off when in reality they still will think that their games are the best in the world regardless if you use that rare technique called logic to debunk any comment you see. However if you play good games they will be filled with doubt an uncertainty with the thought that they may be missing a good game instead of this one and their infinite supply of money as become shorter for nothing. Isnt that is more effective??"

I was unsure if this "job" he has actually prevented him from doing so. But then i heard this:

"but sometimes I seriously consider putting my money where my mouth is, retiring from reviewing triple-A big-commerce games altogether and concentrating entirely on indie releases, because that seems to be the only avenue where anything interesting happens"

My reaction??? The Slow Clap.

clap....clap......clap...clap..clap...clap.clapclapclapclapCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAP
Come on people, join me up. CLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLACLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLA CLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLA(the audience stands up and clap even faster and stronger)

Anyway, if he his going to review The Binding Of Isaac he should at least tell us what version he played. There is the halloween update and 2 more updates to fix some game breaking bugs that are just horrible in a game when you cant save your progress. Like when you try to look in the wiki what item does what and suddendly the game closes itself (i have lost more games that way than just dying normally but i will get to that later) There is also the bug that makes the Satan True Final Boss fight a pain in the ass because you cant overkill him so hard that the HP goes negative and cant kill him anymore + the sound glicth that will make your ears bleed because i know 99% of you will have the music for the final boss at all volume. By the way, the Satan fight is a spoiler, but this game is so cool that you are probably going to play it 10 more times after i said it or reinstall it in the same way someone reinstalls Deus Ex as soon it hears it.

About the game getting to easy with certain upgrades that is debatable because you can even win with the worst items like Brimstone + Triple Shot, it makes your 2 seconds charge time into 5 seconds charge with the same damage making it very difficult to clear rooms but somehow a piece of cake against Moms Heart (spoilers).

The REAL Game Breaker is the fact that if you play well with the money and some active items you can get lots of Blood bags (specially the ones that makes you invulnerable + makes Blood donation machines appear in the same room and even if you dont have invulnerability items you can still abuse the mercy invincibility when taking damage to obtain money too) and with the money you had you can spend your chances on the Slot Machine to accumulate pills and eventually a Dollar Bill for future purchases + the fact that the Greed mini boss, that is guaranteed to happen at least 1 or 2 times per playtrough, drops a Steam Sale items that drops the prices to 50%, makes the only 3 items you can always have in each playtrough.
Lets not forget that you can exceed your maximum health that its displayed on the screen by abusing items that add more maximum health like the pills or soul hearts to the point that you can take damage but the hearts are not dropping down in the screen. This however makes the game very crashing friendly and you have to avoid ALT+TABing or clicking anywhere outside the game window or you will regret that your overpowered Isaac didnt make it.
Another bug (or intended feature?) is that some abilities RESET some stats instead of subtracting a few stats that you already have like Number One, where you can use you piss to attack enemies instead of tears and you gain maximum attacking speed (or Tears UP maximum) but you range resets to minimum regardless of how many range upgrades you had before, this makes some boss fight upgrades that go for range totally useless but you can skip that item right? well yes.............if you actually knew that bug or feature to begin with, probably because you have the wiki next to the game except that if you do use it your game will fucking crash!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH

If this was too munch of a spoil for you then i will doubt it. After all, no one reads my comments after the first 2 pages but i will go for a new record of people not reading ANY comments after the first page. Thus making this post entirely pointless. HUZZA!!!

 

[DioWallachia]

@Yahtzee

On the off-chance that you read these comments, I just wanted to say that I'm surprised to see you say this:

It's still another triple-A shooter that succumbs to what I'm starting to call "sightseeing tour syndrome" - where every slightest movement on the part of the player is rigidly predetermined in order to show off the spectacular set pieces. Where every now and again an attempt is made to break up the monotony by locking you into a vehicle or turret section which you are permitted to enjoy for an allotted fun period before being kicked out for the next predetermined point.

This is something I hate in games, and have hated ever since I first saw it used extensively... in Half-Life 2. Valve (the company that you are so openly enamoured with) are IMO almost solely responsible for the popularisation of this sort of gameplay.

Agreed. personally I don't mind some scripted events if it helps to further the gameplay experience or plot in some way. But stuff like BF3 where it was nothing but QTE's for fight scenes and such... and even in MW3's campaign where you were literally knocked on your ass every 5 minutes by a bomb... it breaks up the game play too much.

Done right, it's great imo. Done wrong, and it starts feeling like a Micheal Bay movie.

Also, can't help but notice the shameless plug for Binding of Isaac. Indie game... get off steam... seems like a kind of cliche move to appeal to the anti-fanboys. I expected better of you Yahtzee.

What do you mean to appeal to the Anti Fanboys? didnt quite get that. Maybe he is just admiting that only indie games may keep is attention spawn of one pico second. But i believe he will also keep an eye on the Ubisoft games because they have been taking notes out of Yatzee and they said that if Rayman Origins gets money, they may make Beyond Good And Evil 2

 

[Darren Grey]

The developer of The Binding of Isaac recently made an interesting point in the Roguelike Radio podcast about how commercial games will always be inferior to indie games overall since mixing money and art ultimately leads to bad design:

http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.com/2011/11/episode-11-binding-of-isaac.html

It's not 100% true I think, but it probably is about 90% true. There's only a minority of game industry developers actually interested in making truly good games.

 

[ThunderCavalier]

Gee.... You think Jack Thompson was right after all?

Oh, god no.

I'm just worried that an oversaturation of video games might condition us to the point where we WANT a war.

But I'm not saying that they're outright tra--- Oh, great, now I just realized how I sounded EXACTLY like Jack Thompson.

*ahem*

Let me rephrase. I'm starting to worry about some people getting the wrong impression from these games, but I do not, in any way, believe that people are out there trying to convince us that war is good, I do not think that video games are violence simulators, and I certainly do not believe that anything video game-related that's said from Fox News, Jack Thompson, or any media outlet looking for a quick story and blame has any credibility beyond the simple, "It's there, therefore it must happen."

If all of that was true, I'd expect World War III to have happened as a result of Rambo.

 

[JackyG]

I noticed this last night playing modern warfare 3. when you take down the submarine and use its missiles on the entire enemy fleet instead of something a little more somber you get this stirring orchestral score that may as well be "America! FUCK YEAH!" It was a little disturbing because the entire war in that game is meant to be built on a lie. so all these thousands of deaths that you've just caused shouldn't be seen as a good thing surely?

 

[JackyG]

Yahtzee, if I may speak directly to you for a moment in the vague hope that you still read these posts:

I would love for you or somebody equally qualified to do actual reviews of indie games more often. Right now, the attitude of the Internet towards indie games is something like "Support the independents! Buy all the things! Don't let this vibrant industry die!" when it should be more like "Hey, here are some games you might not have heard of but might like and here's why." This even extends to some of the ways they market themselves, like the Humble Indie Bundle. It makes the whole "scene" look like some sort of charity case instead of an industry that produces things to sell, and it's not hard to see how this could lead to stagnation down the line if it hasn't already.

If you check out youtube, there's a guy TotalBiscuit who does a bunch of "WTF is . . ." videos which are first impressions. They're not reviews persay of course but he does tend to focus on less-AAA games so that might be a viable way for you to check out the game play of some smaller games.

Also reviews on the run, which available streaming in Canada and maybe in the US? Regularly reviews independent games. Though, they do focus on the larger titles of course.

YES TOTALBISCUIT RULES!!!

There needs to be more of a focus from bigger outlets on indie titles. He is a prime example of it's success.

 

[DioWallachia]

Gee.... You think Jack Thompson was right after all?

Oh, god no.

I'm just worried that an oversaturation of video games might condition us to the point where we WANT a war.

But I'm not saying that they're outright tra--- Oh, great, now I just realized how I sounded EXACTLY like Jack Thompson.

*ahem*

Let me rephrase. I'm starting to worry about some people getting the wrong impression from these games, but I do not, in any way, believe that people are out there trying to convince us that war is good, I do not think that video games are violence simulators, and I certainly do not believe that anything video game-related that's said from Fox News, Jack Thompson, or any media outlet looking for a quick story and blame has any credibility beyond the simple, "It's there, therefore it must happen."

If all of that was true, I'd expect World War III to have happened as a result of Rambo.

How munch you wanna bet that The Majestic12 want to ensure that their bussiness around making money with movies stays without a strong competitor, like the video game industry, by abusing the media to spam the idea of games being murder simulators and constructing the stereotype of games being just flashy lights and no substance since the beginning (people seems to forget that films are ALSO going for that route and not for that i am sending all film history to the grave)
But the more sensible explanation is that they made the games as realistic and boring as posible to make people stop playing the games and actually BEG for a real war to get some action or get killed (Actually it will be quite ironic isnt it?? the video games are ACTUALLY making people violent...............because they got angry with the games because they wasted money on ANOTHER Realistic FPS and guest what??? it was boring as hell. If it was a good game they stay in home being a recluse and the media ALSO ***** about that too. We are fucked either way. In other words, "Just As Planned")

Good thing to mention Deus Ex once in a while, isnt it? but wait, didnt Deus Ex mentioned some harsh remarks like the WTC being destroyed by terrorists before the events happened in real life??? (it was a render limitation and had to cut the towers) Wait, what i am complaining about, its a video game. They always were about flashy lights, no sustance and of course no game will ever ask big philosophical questions, and not because the video game developers are actually scared shitless of making anything that may drawn attention related to controversy and are actually obligated to survive by abusing the political "Correct" mindset of the americans of killing everyone that ISNT american and had to release the same game over and over and over. That would be silly and improbable. In fact what are we talking about?? i got distracted by an explosion.

Actually a will like that some troll like Jack Thomsom compares the realistic FPS of today with ZOG Nightmare (a Neo Nazi propaganda video game) What do you think it will happen?

 

[Erttheking]

I'm starting to get the feeling that he's just bashing us over the head now, practically screaming "DID I MENTION I'M A CYNIC?!" Seriously, some of us take pride in where we live, countless countries have long proud histories, America, Britian, France and Spain just to name a few. Those countries have worked hard to make themselves world powers and it only makes sense that people would take pride in that. Then again Yahtzee is the type of person who ripes apart every single last aspect of human life that has the slightest bit of flaw to it, it's only a matter of time before he dismisses Christmas as just a waste of time and money, saying it's just a corporate selling season.

Seriously this guy needs to lighten up and enjoy life a bit more.

 

[ElPatron]

I disagree. Red Faction based it's gameplay on the physics. Crysis makes the graphics a part of it's gameplay but you can tell it's to show off their engine. Yet it's always there.

These two examples are the opposite of Battlefield's case.

Battlefield features sequences that have the purpose of showing off. If it were Call of Duty, it was showing off how the developers can script action packed sequences.






I do understand how unfair he was for reviewing a game that was meant to be played online. He is biased against multiplayer for very understandable reasons. But one thing is being able to review MP and other is being able to point out how d-bags your team-mates are and pretend that it's the developers fault for not making a MP mode that engages him.


But I do think it's fair to penalize BF3 for having a campaign nobody asked to be in a BF2 sequel.

 

[Epic Fail 1977]

@Yahtzee

On the off-chance that you read these comments, I just wanted to say that I'm surprised to see you say this:

It's still another triple-A shooter that succumbs to what I'm starting to call "sightseeing tour syndrome" - where every slightest movement on the part of the player is rigidly predetermined in order to show off the spectacular set pieces. Where every now and again an attempt is made to break up the monotony by locking you into a vehicle or turret section which you are permitted to enjoy for an allotted fun period before being kicked out for the next predetermined point.

This is something I hate in games, and have hated ever since I first saw it used extensively... in Half-Life 2. Valve (the company that you are so openly enamoured with) are IMO almost solely responsible for the popularisation of this sort of gameplay.

Absolute rubbish! Tonnes of games were using cutscenes before half-life 2 (which uses none) and the rate they were used continued at the same rate without them. There is no evidence for such a gameplay-heavy game in anyway adding to cutscene mania. It's like me claiming your denseness is causing the earth to spin out of orbit. Get out of here!

Cutscenes and set pieces are not the same thing at all.

 

[DioWallachia]

Wait, how can someone make a full retail game out of The Binding of Isaac? i mean, what ELSE could we add to the game that is needed?? i believe its pretty solid on his own like Portal 1. I dont see how can we make it even better other than bug fixes and maybe a eternal game mode where you keep playing until you die to see how far you reach. But with items that makes you have almost unlimited health and power ups that makes your attack rape anything on screen i dont see how that could work unless every room is as hard like The Womb + Sheol combined and there is at least 2 eyes with frisking lasers to fight the monstrous Isaac

Quick Edit: forget about what i said, they should have instealled a dinamic dificult mode where the game gets hard only according to your stats

 

[Towels]

Thanks Yatzee, you just helped me figure out why I don't want to ever play Homefront.

 

[2-part Epoxy]

Months ago, I uninstalled Spelunky from my computer; after playing it thousands of times, I decided it was to damn fun for me to handle at this point in life.

Days ago, I bought the Humble Bundle and started playing The Binding of Isaac.

Dammit, Edmund McMillan. Dammit, Florian Himsl. Why must your work be so good?

 

[Alexnader]

I disagree. Red Faction based it's gameplay on the physics. Crysis makes the graphics a part of it's gameplay but you can tell it's to show off their engine. Yet it's always there.

These two examples are the opposite of Battlefield's case.

I can't really understand you here. Are you saying that RF and Crysis show off their engines with destruction and graphics respectively while BF3 does not? If you're saying this then I'd disagree and say that BF3 does show off its engine, however it doesn't detract from the gameplay.

Or are you saying that Crysis and RF include awesome stuff for the sake of gameplay while BF3 includes awesome stuff simply for the sake of advertising their engine? If you're saying this then I'd disagree again, you're drawing a very fine line between making use of the engine and just showing it off for marketing's sake.

Battlefield features sequences that have the purpose of showing off. If it were Call of Duty, it was showing off how the developers can script action packed sequences.

I can't really speak that much for SP since I've only played multiplayer however I would question how you can tell that a sequence is designed to "show off" rather than just to impress which is surely a legitimate thing to aim for in a game, furthermore showing off and impressing are two very similar things.

 

[BonsaiK]

Silly, silly Yahtzee, still thinking that singleplayer BF3 actually matters. This article, and his BF3 video review, is like reviewing a porn and talking about the wallpaper in the bedroom.