Extra Punctuation: Battlefield 3 Is Scary

Vault101

I'm in your mind fuzz
Sep 26, 2010
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Vault101 said:
Xman490 said:
I like how you quickly mini-review some games (like Space Marine a few weeks ago) in these EPs.

"Sightseeing tour", huh? That's what you called Portal 2, and it makes sense when you think about it. As Portal 2 goes on, more and more in-game scenes happen (such as two spliced chambers being smashed together), and the mere spectacle adds nothing to the gameplay by instead focusing on presentation. The masses (myself included) tend to love these displays, but as another of my favored reviewers (acornfilms on Youtube) has said, "[The core would be] PLAY over disPLAY".
Baradiel said:
Xman490 said:
"Sightseeing tour", huh? That's what you called Portal 2, and it makes sense when you think about it. As Portal 2 goes on, more and more in-game scenes happen (such as two spliced chambers being smashed together), and the mere spectacle adds nothing to the gameplay by instead focusing on presentation. The masses (myself included) tend to love these displays, but as another of my favored reviewers (acornfilms on Youtube) has said, "[The core would be] PLAY over disPLAY".
I loved that bit too, and if I remember correctly (probably not. Haven't played Portal 2 in months :/) that bit is when
Wheatly has taken control and doesn't know what he's doing.
That would have been designed to show how little control he has.

Also, weren't there also differences in the puzzles? Literally cannot remember.
I dont know...I alays saw the in game set peices as "in-between" the puzzles...you still do puzzles just like the original portal

I sort of see where he's coming from in that specitcle takes over game play..I supose set peices are becoming the new "cutscene"

still I love me some setpeices :p
 

Alexnader

$20 For Steve
May 18, 2009
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ElPatron said:
snip

MonkeyPunch said:
Yahtzee said in his BF3 sketch "Battlefield 3 was built on the Frostbite 2 engine. I know this for a fact because it can't go 5 minutes without banging on about it."

If you play the MP it never even shows you a Frostbite 2 logo at all. So yeah, to me it seems like we have different versions of the game.
Or like one of us didn't really pay much attention to the game.

Or you didn't pay attention to that ZP episode. Each time a wall is taken down, a building collapses, etc it's the developers hinting at how powerful the engine is.

MP is full of "Look at Frostbite 2!!!" moments because honestly it is what you are looking at.
Yeah, or it's just the developers making a really damn good game? The cynical few may call the way buildings groan and slowly shatter in multiplayer fetishistic and designed to market the engine, however I call it really really cool. Especially when you just manage to leap out of a building as it crumbles around you.

Essentially, you could say every game is marketing the engine it's built on because what the player sees constantly is what the engine renders.


Anyway, assuming Yachtzee is totally serious and sincere in his reviews (that's a big assumption to make) I'd say he doesn't get Battlefield 3. He decries linearity, repetition and lack of player agency in games and then just ignores the multiplayer which has everything he's looking for.
 

-|-

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Aug 28, 2010
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Talk about over-thinking things - sheesh. Games like MW and BF are supposed to be mindless fun and for many they are - and more importantly they aren't real ffs!!!
 

zoomyetti4890

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Sep 11, 2011
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While the air bombing in the MW series is questionable, I'm not sure how far removed it is from tower defense levels that have been ubiquitous long before it. e.g. mowing down waves of cartoony soldiers in Armed & Dangerous (which is ridiculously easy on Normal)

Yahtzee raises complaints about militarism of the recent AAA-shooters, yet he seems looks past/ enjoys nearly equally disturbing aspects of Condemned and Blood etc (not that they aren't fun games) ... though even his original reaction to MW1 overlooked the jingoism to enjoy, um, how engaging the rollercoaster is, or something like that.

Maybe a future EP could look at classism in games?
 

Bishop99999999

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Dec 6, 2007
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"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

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Mar 30, 2009
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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

Coffee Bandit
Mar 22, 2009
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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

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Jan 27, 2011
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ThunderCavalier said:
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

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Sep 7, 2007
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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

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Sep 9, 2011
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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

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Aeonknight said:
Guy Jackson said:
@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

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Dec 2, 2007
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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

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Nov 21, 2009
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sleeky01 said:
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

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Jun 26, 2011
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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?