Extra Punctuation: How Yakuza 4 Grabs You

Casimir_Effect

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Quite obviously Gordon Freeman was the affirmative action employee at Black Mesa. He was the retard needed to fill some employment requirements.
Think about it: never says a word; only job was to push a cart (and still fucked that up); happily takes orders from anyone he comes across no matter how dangerous sounding or vague; doesn't bat an eyelid that aliens have appeared all over the place. He's clearly a very special little boy.

And I cannot understand why people get attached to the companion cube. I can only guess it's just a massive bandwagon people like to jump on to project an air of whisy. It was a fucking box. Throughout the game, you can pick up other fucking boxes. Whoopdedoo
 

Labcoat Samurai

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Reminds me of that act in MGS4 where you return to Shadow Moses. It had actually been maybe 12 years since I last played MGS, and going back and seeing all the same areas was an extremely nostalgic trip for me.
 

Seneschal

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Jun 27, 2009
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It's what DA2 has tried to do. Unfortunately, no backwards glance is required in Kirkwall when the entire city and everything in it doesn't change one bit over the course of 7 years. For me, it stopped being familiar and started being stifling.

But I appreciate what they wanted to do, and I love it when games get it right. The Suikoden games always feature a home fortress from where you spread your rebellion, and it evolves throughout the game, shops opening, character moving in, dancing shows and cooking contests being organized for the inhabitants, your barracks, your troops, the war room, the rooms of your allies and friends... All growing and becoming more sophisticated as you transform from a guerilla rebel into a liberation army leader.

Please, more of that. That was awesome.
 

Latinidiot

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I like that with God Of War. Every game has like 6 main locations, where you keep coming back with new stuff, moves, keys and the like.
 

StriderShinryu

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Seneschal said:
It's what DA2 has tried to do. Unfortunately, no backwards glance is required in Kirkwall when the entire city and everything in it doesn't change one bit over the course of 7 years. For me, it stopped being familiar and started being stifling.

But I appreciate what they wanted to do, and I love it when games get it right. The Suikoden games always feature a home fortress from where you spread your rebellion, and it evolves throughout the game, shops opening, character moving in, dancing shows and cooking contests being organized for the inhabitants, your barracks, your troops, the war room, the rooms of your allies and friends... All growing and becoming more sophisticated as you transform from a guerilla rebel into a liberation army leader.

Please, more of that. That was awesome.
I have to agree with this. While ultimately it wasn't entirely successful, I really do appreciate what DA2 tried to do in this respect.
 

KDR_11k

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It's one aspect I like about the good Metroid games, you form an understanding of the world layout and get to know the places because you travel through them often.
 

Optimystic

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fanklok said:
Infernoshadow211 said:
So far, I think every Yakuza game has ended with a shirtless fight atop a high building.
Then they'll have to vary it up for the next one, a pantless brawl in a basement.
How do you say "This never leaves the cave" in Japanese?

Khushal said:
I think Yahtzee hit's something spot on here.

His theory that creating a ''safe haven'' for players, only to later attack or threaten them at their haven is a theory which I have to agree with is a very strong narrative.

I'm especially thinking about the level in Mass Effect 2 where your ship is being attacked by the collectors, in which you are controlling Joker and moving through familiar surroundings that you have established as ''safe'' 15 minutes into the game.

Thinking about that level, I may have to agree with Yahtzee that it is because of that narrative that event is so damn good.
I was just coming here to mention this; ME2 did this masterfully. Even more heartwrenching than the panicky scramble through the attacked Normandy controlling a barely-functional Joker, was the horribly-empty ship you were forced to travel around in after the attack, and woe-betide you if you didn't have all the upgrades yet.
 

snakeys

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believer258 said:
Yatzhee, are you saying that series like Yakuza and Half-Life and... well, pretty much anything that goes beyond 2, needs a sort of "anchoring point" that you become familiar with? Or that games should repeat memorable areas?

I see your point, but I don't really think I like it a whole lot. Wouldn't you get a little sick of seeing the same area after 4 games?

The effect of turning something familiar upside down does work. I remember it in Jak 3, when you first got back to the city after a few hours of gameplay and it was a big wreck. However, I think I'd rather a game go through different territories than try to repeat an area unless it served some sort of atmospheric or story purpose.
Great point about Jak 2 and 3. Those games are the two best examples of this that came to my mind. Those were two very underrated games as well.
 

Stammer

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The Article said:
This is a great example of letting the player get comfortable with a place, then taking that comfort away to let them know the stakes have risen.
I remember in Perfect Dark 64 you could at any point in the game wander around your home base of Carrington Institute, saying "hi" to your co-workers and testing out the equipment. And then in one of the later levels within the game the Institute comes under attack and you have to drive the enemy out, protecting the scientists and helping your fellow agents. It was always my favourite mission, and for a similar reason to what this article pointed out.
 

repeating integers

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Optimystic said:
I was just coming here to mention this; ME2 did this masterfully. Even more heartwrenching than the panicky scramble through the attacked Normandy controlling a barely-functional Joker, was the horribly-empty ship you were forced to travel around in after the attack, and woe-betide you if you didn't have all the upgrades yet.
Oh god, I remember that. The Normandy felt so empty, it was actually creepy. With no Kelly Chambers to say "sir, there's been a new message at your private terminal", no Mess Sergeant Gardner, neither of the two engineers... I felt the loss then more than I did when it was happening. Same with Kaiden/Ashley in the original - after the actual event (you know the one I mean), what really got me was the conspicuous lack of checking for their skill upgrades, giving them new armour etc. The game really made me feel like I'd lost something.
 

burningdragoon

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So this is Yahtzee's little game storytelling nugget of the day, chaps. If your game is a linear succession of locations with nary a backward glance then the most you can do is make the player go "Ooh, that's pretty."

Annnnd there's the big issue with FFXIII (to me)

/oldnews
 

GrizzlerBorno

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Optimystic said:
I was just coming here to mention this; ME2 did this masterfully. Even more heartwrenching than the panicky scramble through the attacked Normandy controlling a barely-functional Joker, was the horribly-empty ship you were forced to travel around in after the attack, and woe-betide you if you didn't have all the upgrades yet.
Agreed. And that's not the only bit too. After ahving played ME1 thrice, I had gotten rather attached to her. Needless to say I was pretty fucking upset at the beginning of the game.

There was a similar bit in Dragon Age:Origins where your safe camp gets attacked. But the altercation was so brief and abrupt, it doesn't really leave any thing even remotely resembling a scar..... right shame too.
 

Zom-B

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Yahtzee Croshaw said:
After finishing Yakuza 4 I went back to have a look at Yakuza 1 on the PS2. I was a little disappointed to find that Y4 rips quite a few things off from its predecessor, including ... the fictional commercial district of Kamurocho in Tokyo, is the exact same one, right down to the street layout.
Wait, I don't get it. Is this a complaint that Kamurocho is the same? If it's supposed to be a persistent city district in the game world, I wouldn't expect it to change, except for superficially. It should have the same layout, many of the same buildings and locations. Why wouldn't you want it to? I'm not sure how much time has passed between Yakuza 1 and 4, having only played Yakuza 3, but your comment seems to go against what I would expect from a game set in a consistent, persistent world.

Am I reading you wrong here?
 
Oct 2, 2010
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Zom-B said:
Yahtzee Croshaw said:
After finishing Yakuza 4 I went back to have a look at Yakuza 1 on the PS2. I was a little disappointed to find that Y4 rips quite a few things off from its predecessor, including ... the fictional commercial district of Kamurocho in Tokyo, is the exact same one, right down to the street layout.
Wait, I don't get it. Is this a complaint that Kamurocho is the same? If it's supposed to be a persistent city district in the game world, I wouldn't expect it to change, except for superficially. It should have the same layout, many of the same buildings and locations. Why wouldn't you want it to? I'm not sure how much time has passed between Yakuza 1 and 4, having only played Yakuza 3, but your comment seems to go against what I would expect from a game set in a consistent, persistent world.

Am I reading you wrong here?
Maybe. He was using that paragraph to lead into his entire point about how consistancy/reuse can be a used well.
 

tigermilk

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Really hope the next GTA is in Vice City, this article has reminded me how much I wan't to revisit VC in HD.
 

Hat Man

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You know, Dragon Age 2 had a lot of potential for this sort of thing... that is if every single room and cave wasn't exactly the same.