Games which are way better when played a certain way

[Johnny Novgorod]

Far Cry 3. You don't have to clear out those outposts, and if you do, you don't have to remain undetected... but if you do, you're basically Jungle Batman, and FC3 is Game Of The Year.

Just sayin'. Clearing out outposts stealthily? Best thing ever.

Definitely look into getting Far Cry 4 when you get the chance. I'm sure you've heard about the whole "Far Cry 3 but better" statements. It's true, but they don't always go into detail as to why.

Not sure if I should spoiler this, but I will anyway just to be safe. Just discussing new additions to the game.

Spoiler

- Outposts have an option to redo the attack and recapture them now. The option shows up after you capture them.
- There is even an option to reset all of them from the main menu
- There are new Fortresses in the game, four in total. They are essentially large outposts with multiple alarms and multiple waves of reinforcements
- Some outposts have mortars which can really wreck you if you're not careful

Thanks for that. I could've swore there was a similar reset option for FC3, but maybe I was confusing it with FC4? On the other hand FC4, I read, has 10 outposts less than FC3. So the reset option would be a very welcome addition. Also the chance to redo an outpost after you capture it is nice. There were a couple of times in FC3 when I THOUGHT I'd gone completely undetected, but then I finished the last enemy and it gave me 550 XP instead of the 1500 XP for going undetected. And I couldn't go through it again because autosave.

 

[sageoftruth]

In Mark of the Ninja, well, there are a bunch of ways to have fun with this one, but for me, the game isn't challenging at all unless I go for a no-kill run. As a result, I always choose the Path of Silence outfit.

On the other hand, if you're just looking for a fun romp as terror incarnate, try using the Path of Fear/Terror (I forget) outfit. I love using that in the stage where gas is rising and you have to survive until the door on the roof opens. Just kill a guard somewhere near the bottom and hide in the top and watch as all the guards spot the body, freak out and shoot each other by accident, making more bodies and causing more guards to lose their cool. In the end, it's a friendly-fire massacre.

Also, in Thief 2, I like going for a no-save run of a level. It makes things much more intense. However, there are conditions: If there's lots of platforming, or pixel-hunting, it can be too frustrating. Otherwise, it's fun to have to escape the guards on your own rather than reaching for the quick load button.

 

[sageoftruth]

Foul Play: Best played with a friend, where you both actually speak the dialogue for the character you are playing, using cheezy, terrible British accents to boot. Also tossing out various comments while fighting.

I need to go to youtube right now to see if anyone made a video of that. It sounds like a riot.

 

[sageoftruth]

In Tomb Raider 2013, don't try to collect everything. The high point of the game is the action/stealth. Wandering around in search of random stuff is a chore that makes me forget why I'm even playing.

 

[happyninja42]

Foul Play: Best played with a friend, where you both actually speak the dialogue for the character you are playing, using cheezy, terrible British accents to boot. Also tossing out various comments while fighting.

I need to go to youtube right now to see if anyone made a video of that. It sounds like a riot.

There has actually. Team Fourstar has done a Two Sayans Play of the game. Where lanipator and takahata101 play it, voice acting as their characters Vegeta and Nappa.

Here's the first clip:

 

[Clearwaters]

I find JRPGs to be a lot more fun when I play them all comfy in bed on a handheld. In fact most menu heavy games are more enjoyable this way.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

In Mark of the Ninja...

On the other hand, if you're just looking for a fun romp as terror incarnate, try using the Path of Fear/Terror (I forget) outfit. I love using that in the stage where gas is rising and you have to survive until the door on the roof opens. Just kill a guard somewhere near the bottom and hide in the top and watch as all the guards spot the body, freak out and shoot each other by accident, making more bodies and causing more guards to lose their cool. In the end, it's a friendly-fire massacre.

OMG. How did I forget to mention that in my own list?

Seriously, being an evil version of Batman, terrifying every single guard into shooting their allies and driving the more and more insane until there's only one whimpering guy left whom you pounce on from the shadows to grant the mercy of death was the most fun I had with that game.

Driving the guards into a total panic and making them all pick each other off was hilariously satisfying. XD

 

[Flammablezeus]

Elder Scrolls and Fallout games: Don't abuse the save system. Outside of bugs and death, you should never reload a save. Nor should you make decisions based upon rewards if you're not told what they are beforehand. This gives decisions and random occurrences actual weight. Since I started doing this, I've felt so much more attached to my character and the world I'm in. You don't always wind up with the best of the best stuff, but then you realise that you don't have to have the best stuff to enjoy the game. Plus, you can always create more characters to play things differently.

 

[vledleR]

For those of you who can play through New Vegas quickly, I'd recommend doing a run towards independent Vegas, but complete the missions against your favour (ignore the competing factions, blow up the securitron upgrades, etc.) You're guaranteed to get a chuckle out of Yes-Man consistently (and at times, reluctantly) praising every terrible decision you make.

..or you could watch a youtube video of it, I guess.

 

[Danbo Jambo]

Thansk for the responses.

With Skyrim stealth are you all meaning archer-stealth, melee-stealth or both? I found archer the best way to play all round, but still found the game as a whole pretty dull I'm afraid

Skyrim when you play a bow/stealth build. There is just something that is super satisfying about watching that arrow fly across the room, nailing someone in the head and watching them drop. Sure, it is overpowered, but the rest of the combat in that game just feels super weak anyway.

Yeah, that's the route I took and it was by far the most interesting.

Yeah, I kinda screwed myself with Risen 2, cause I thought I'd get into magic, and invested my points accordingly, but it takes ages before you even get access to it, and I gave up before I even got that far, combat was such a slog.

I'd also nominate Planescape: Torment. That game is much better with high int/wis/cha scores, due to the additional dialogue options

Definitely give Risen 2 another go with firearms if you get chance mate. It's a very underated game IMO.

Play the Saints Row games like you're an up and coming SuperVillian(ess). For bonus points, when you're playing 3 and 4, find the most awesome, silly costume to complete the illusion. Totally puts the silliness and OOTness of 3 and 4 in much better perspective.

For bonus points, assume the Boss's start of darkness and root of his/her psychotic destructive behavour is a result of brain damage resulting from the massive explosion at the end of SR1 and the resulting 5 year coma. It's amazing how well this glues the entire series together.

Bizarely I did just that myself with a villianess SR4! lol (Apart from the coma imagination bit). You're bang right, it just "feels" brilliant.

If you need to be told not to use things the game gives you, or need to go look up a walkthrough to get into the game that's a failure from the part of the people who designed the game.

Not that it doesn't mean the game can't be enjoyed in a specific way, but you can't really say 'of course you weren't enjoying the game, you were playing it wrong! You should have known to do it this one specific way, with these mods, and with THIS walkthough!'

Sadly, I think a LOT of games suffer from that nowadays, which is one of the reasons I started the thread (mainly to highlight where we can find enjoyment we may have missed).

So many try to please everyone, and often you end up with an all-round OK, but watered down & "meh" experience.

I feel the opposite. I find it MUCH more fun to look for alternative routes and just stealth the hell out of everything, and ko the enemies one at a time until I've cleared them all out.

Although I also enjoyed a stealth-Assassin-run, where I tried to kill everything hostile in the game without being spotted. THAT was also a ton of fun.

That's actually the best part about Human Revolution. You can play it MANY different ways and have a blast.

It's not that I mind stealthing, it's just I tried to avoid killing totally and went for maximum XP on my first run, and it was just boring. I played as an auged cybernetic baddass and I wanted to feel lilke one.

But like you say it's designed to suit all tastes I just wish more was made of the satisfying voilence as the stealth aspect. I'd have certainly enjoyed it more & sooner lol.

 

[Scow2]

Far Cry 3. You don't have to clear out those outposts, and if you do, you don't have to remain undetected... but if you do, you're basically Jungle Batman, and FC3 is Game Of The Year.

Just sayin'. Clearing out outposts stealthily? Best thing ever.

I agree with being Jungle Batman. My favourite activity in the game was to clear outposts undetected, and it felt so satisfying to stalk the guards, poke around the perimeter for an opening, and take them down one by one. That is until a random passing tiger strolls in and takes everyone out in 30 seconds without effort.

Ehh... I disagree. Best way to play Far Cry is with the Grenade Launcher, LMG, and Flamethrower. Put a C4 on a truck, drive it into the outpost (Get ALL their attention!) jump out, detonate the truck, set everyone who survives on fire or blow them up. Wait for reinforcments, gun them all down.

Oh yeah... and to get the truck, plant a mine on the road where trucks come. When the first truck blows up, more will come. Grab a truck that hasn't exploded by the break in the carnage. Lead a parade of pursuit into the fort.

For scoring a base capture, note the number of visible destroyed vehicles, as well as size and number of fires around the base as the flag goes up.

 

[Ishal]

Far Cry 3. You don't have to clear out those outposts, and if you do, you don't have to remain undetected... but if you do, you're basically Jungle Batman, and FC3 is Game Of The Year.

Just sayin'. Clearing out outposts stealthily? Best thing ever.

Definitely look into getting Far Cry 4 when you get the chance. I'm sure you've heard about the whole "Far Cry 3 but better" statements. It's true, but they don't always go into detail as to why.

Not sure if I should spoiler this, but I will anyway just to be safe. Just discussing new additions to the game.

Spoiler

- Outposts have an option to redo the attack and recapture them now. The option shows up after you capture them.
- There is even an option to reset all of them from the main menu
- There are new Fortresses in the game, four in total. They are essentially large outposts with multiple alarms and multiple waves of reinforcements
- Some outposts have mortars which can really wreck you if you're not careful

Thanks for that. I could've swore there was a similar reset option for FC3, but maybe I was confusing it with FC4? On the other hand FC4, I read, has 10 outposts less than FC3. So the reset option would be a very welcome addition. Also the chance to redo an outpost after you capture it is nice. There were a couple of times in FC3 when I THOUGHT I'd gone completely undetected, but then I finished the last enemy and it gave me 550 XP instead of the 1500 XP for going undetected. And I couldn't go through it again because autosave.

Don't mention it.

I play on the PC version, so there is an entire sub group of players who compete for top scores on the outpost points. Lot's of people seem to love that feature. Couple other things that add to the game are the co-op elements. It can be fun taking fortresses with another person, depending on if you want to run and gun and not stealth it.

They made lots of little additions to the game to make it crazy and random. There are little "quests" that pop up in open world when you're just driving around. Karma events, they're called. Chase down a supply truck and hijack it, stop a courier from delivering a message, save hostages.

The enemies will sometimes try to retake outposts you've captured, and you can participate in events that try and stop them. There are "Pagan's Wrath" convoys of trucks that will roam around and try and take back outposts you've recaptured.

Also, one of the additions that can be difficult when trying to stealth capture an outpost... are these guys.

Spoiler

The hunters are a good addition to shake things up.

- They can use regular arrows and fire arrows
- They can see you through bushes and vegetation
- They are invisible on the mini map
- Their icons disappear after you tag them
- They can charm animals and turn them against you, even setting lose that tiger or bear in a cage that you thought you could use. Nope, not until they're dead.

 

[aozgolo]

Survival games generally are best played with a specific starting rythymn. Games like Don't Starve or Banished will have you slamming your head into the keyboard unless you develop an important routine to set yourself up for success early in the game. In Don't Starve it's all about setting up a base camp at a strategically important location early on. For Banished you need to maintain a decent warmth and food supply intake to keep your people alive through winters.

At first I rebelled against this because I'm much more of a "play your own way" kind of person but there's surprisingly a lot of freedom given in these games in how you can succeed but only if you follow the routine you set for yourself.



In another vein I've found open world sandbox games tend to be better if you wait until you've unlocked more content through the story missions before enjoying the sandbox elements. Games like Grand Theft Auto are way more fun if you have the whole world or all the characters unlocked.

 

[spartan231490]

Minecraft. It is absolutely no fun when playing alone. Much better with friends

 

[TheMigrantSoldier]

In Persona 3, despite what the game tells you, DON'T level past 75 for the finale. Wait until New game plus for that. Also, magic-based Personas (Personae?) are the way to go.

In Mount and Blade, unless you're playing a mod where shieldwalls are pretty standard (Viking Conquest), anything but having shield and sword as a primary. It's so underwhelming compared to two-handed or archery builds. I also find the spear to be oddly charming.

In Total War games, you should try to play the faction the campaign seems "built" for. I played the Byzantines in the Crusades campaign (Medieval 2) and it was sure as hell boring compared to Egypt and Jerusalem.

 

[small]

alpha protocol. dont specialise in pistols and stock up on EMP grenades.

the pistol skill is strong to the point of the final fight being over in 2 shots, makes the game boring frankly, they really needed to balance this before release

emp grenades mean you never have to do the hacking minigame after the tutorial. dear me that minigame is the single worst hacking minigame in gaming, trying to find two matching stationary codes in a blinking grid of every changing digits using the mouse in your right hand the movement keys in the left similtaneously with a short time limit was a stupid ass idea.. so emp grenade. BOOM.. press use.. done

total war games, dont jam yourself in the corner of the map to prevent flanking. you need to give the AI some sort of fighting chance.

saints row games.. always attack the national guard armoury to steal a tank, dressed as a mascot wielding nothing but a sex toy, dont forget to narrate the entire thing with a richard attenbourgh voice