don't you remember how much he hates other people? i can picture yahtzee as a nightkin, although he talks pretty quickly for one.
Honorable and Dishonorable Mentions
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
The problem I noticed is the whole universe revolves around Commander Shepard everything they say is "Oh commander shepard you saved the world" "I love you commander shepard I want your babies" and "I'll turn gay for you commander shepard". The part where most of the love interests would change their sexual orientation just for shepard was where it seemed odd for me.GonzoGamer said:
Good to know I wasn't the only one who groaned audibly when seeing Super Meat Boy's "random" humour. Heck, until the good reviews started flowing, I hadn't even considered buying it, and this is coming from a guy who 100% beat ever Jumper game. Thing is, I'd seen the previews with the "random" humour and pretty much thought what Yahtzee described above. That left me doubting. Next I read the audacious claims of gameplay touted as innovative yet to me surprisingly similar to Jumper and this left me extremely doubtful. Finally I tried the Flash predecessor and discarded it almost immediately over its terrifyingly sloppy controls and bug addled nature. At this point I just wrote it off in my mind as a popularist cash in on a niche genre of game, something akin to 'Splosion Man.
Ultimately, I'm VERY glad the overwhelmingly positive reviews persuaded me to pick it up, at full price even (see, reviews CAN have affect purchasing decisions). Super Meat Boy is an immensely satisfying game, and all the horrid bugs and PC performance issues aside (to run lag-free, it has higher system requirements than Oblivion, no really), the gameplay has done little but fill me with glee. It's absolutely wonderful and those replays are just as joyous as Yahtzee implies above.
Yet I still groan every time the game arbitrarily forces me to listen to the "WARP ZONE" cry and a random little humour tidbit video just to retry a level. That "funny" thing about not using a gamepad still irritates me upon startup (yeah, blame performance lag on the choice of peripherals guys, real mature reaction to known bugs). Seems desensitising yourself to some of the OTT "random" junk wears thin after the 20th viewing.
And I think this brings me to the crux of this post, and a rebuttal to some of the comments above: Random only works when theres restraint and content interpsaced with it. To those saying sweet irony, the ZP videos _usually_ manage this. Sometimes they don't and those are very much the videos that fail to hit the mark. In Super Meat Boy however, the gameplay and the videos/storybits are split the heck apart, so they are treated invidiually on their own merits. The story lacks any cohesion (took me too long to realise that the monsters in Hell and Rapture were your previous deaths, a potentially hilarious joke were it pitched better) and those good bits fade away in the signal to noise ratio. Instead of stealthily slipping in references, they're, oft quite literally SCREAMED in your face. Subtlety is lost. I realise fully well that's meant to be part of the joke, but consider the requisite age to understand these references and you can see why it suddenly just kinda falls flat.
Ultimately, I'm VERY glad the overwhelmingly positive reviews persuaded me to pick it up, at full price even (see, reviews CAN have affect purchasing decisions). Super Meat Boy is an immensely satisfying game, and all the horrid bugs and PC performance issues aside (to run lag-free, it has higher system requirements than Oblivion, no really), the gameplay has done little but fill me with glee. It's absolutely wonderful and those replays are just as joyous as Yahtzee implies above.
Yet I still groan every time the game arbitrarily forces me to listen to the "WARP ZONE" cry and a random little humour tidbit video just to retry a level. That "funny" thing about not using a gamepad still irritates me upon startup (yeah, blame performance lag on the choice of peripherals guys, real mature reaction to known bugs). Seems desensitising yourself to some of the OTT "random" junk wears thin after the 20th viewing.
And I think this brings me to the crux of this post, and a rebuttal to some of the comments above: Random only works when theres restraint and content interpsaced with it. To those saying sweet irony, the ZP videos _usually_ manage this. Sometimes they don't and those are very much the videos that fail to hit the mark. In Super Meat Boy however, the gameplay and the videos/storybits are split the heck apart, so they are treated invidiually on their own merits. The story lacks any cohesion (took me too long to realise that the monsters in Hell and Rapture were your previous deaths, a potentially hilarious joke were it pitched better) and those good bits fade away in the signal to noise ratio. Instead of stealthily slipping in references, they're, oft quite literally SCREAMED in your face. Subtlety is lost. I realise fully well that's meant to be part of the joke, but consider the requisite age to understand these references and you can see why it suddenly just kinda falls flat.
jmarquiso said:
SpiderJerusalem said:
I suppose it depends on how you play. I'm a big fan of not getting stabbed, so for me the crossbow was a godsend; not as noisy as the pistol but more deadly than the throwing knives. I probably wound up using it more than any other weapon, especially for stealth sections. As for the guild challenges, they simply added more depth to the game rather than revolutionized gameplay, but that's still a positive thing. It had me trying out various things I ordinarily never would have done (or in some cases, even realised I could do - jumping from a horse to a beam, for example) and the rewards were a pleasant little addition.b3nn3tt said:
Now that I don't understand. This time around, rather than fairly bland 'get from point A to point B' platforming, we had sections of mixed combat/platforming thrown in, and my personal favourite - the stealth platforming sections that lead up to the War Machines. Using your surroundings to navigate around a fort without being seen, silently assassinating guards, was more fun for me than simply climbing.b3nn3tt said:
Again, this is just my experience, but I felt that it made some pretty big changes to combat. The ability to eliminate guards from a distance or kill an entire street of enemies at once came in very handy a few times, particularly towards the end whenb3nn3tt said:
you have the Apple, and can't use your weapons, but have to kill a bunch of soldiers in the Colosseum. The Apple being as shit as it was, if I hadn't had my recruits that fight would have taken hours
Not to mention that I found the mission management minigame to be rather fun, though ridiculously easy when you had a few top-level assassins.
Yeah, it took me by surprise too. I'm not a multiplayer person, but AC:B is such fun I can't resist.b3nn3tt said:
At the risk of being redundant, because with that comment it seems highly unlikely you have actually played either of the games, but there are exactly -zero- bisexual or homosexual love interests in ME2, and only one bisexual love interest in ME1. Sure, Shepard is a huge Mary Sue in the sense that the universe -does- seem crafted just to revolve around him or her, but blaming them for making the NPCs you can have as love interests of being so shallow that they just change on a whim is plain wrong.brumley53 said:
It's funny all the differences in opinions on games, it's almost as if people have a subjective view point and experience things differently based on their tastes? Who would have thought.
I picked Mass Effect 2 for my GOTY for the same reason Yahztee picked his. I kept coming back to it. The combat isn't as tight as an FPS but it felt serviceable but the main reason to come back was to try a different class. I played the same battles over and over but the difference between playing as an adept, or solider, or the stealthy one, made it interesting to me.
There's a bit of the uncanny valley and the acting/script/story has a touch of B grade movie about it but let's be honest, how many games come even close to passable in the "telling the story" department. The Renegade dialogue and female shephard (Jennifer Hale) was much better written and acted. My biggest complaint with ME2 was that for all the options it doesn't really change what happens in the game. You'll still fight the same battles, have the same overall story.
My honourable mention goes to Alpha Protocol. Yes it had out-dated combat, yes it was imbalanced, and yes the voice acting was a bit bland but I haven't played a game that rich in content, or continuity so carefully constructed in years. The problem is the only way to see how well they did it is to play through 3 times. But for me it was fun, deep and varied, just like ME2.
As I said, it's all about taste and Yahztee clearly loves his random violence sandboxes. Dead Rising 2, Just Cause 2 and Saints Row 2. What he DOESN'T like is Quick Time Events, hence his dislike of Heavy Rain, not because it's cutscenes but because the entire game IS Quick Time Events. Learn your ZP history people.
I picked Mass Effect 2 for my GOTY for the same reason Yahztee picked his. I kept coming back to it. The combat isn't as tight as an FPS but it felt serviceable but the main reason to come back was to try a different class. I played the same battles over and over but the difference between playing as an adept, or solider, or the stealthy one, made it interesting to me.
There's a bit of the uncanny valley and the acting/script/story has a touch of B grade movie about it but let's be honest, how many games come even close to passable in the "telling the story" department. The Renegade dialogue and female shephard (Jennifer Hale) was much better written and acted. My biggest complaint with ME2 was that for all the options it doesn't really change what happens in the game. You'll still fight the same battles, have the same overall story.
My honourable mention goes to Alpha Protocol. Yes it had out-dated combat, yes it was imbalanced, and yes the voice acting was a bit bland but I haven't played a game that rich in content, or continuity so carefully constructed in years. The problem is the only way to see how well they did it is to play through 3 times. But for me it was fun, deep and varied, just like ME2.
As I said, it's all about taste and Yahztee clearly loves his random violence sandboxes. Dead Rising 2, Just Cause 2 and Saints Row 2. What he DOESN'T like is Quick Time Events, hence his dislike of Heavy Rain, not because it's cutscenes but because the entire game IS Quick Time Events. Learn your ZP history people.
Glad you understood my post, though.Deshara said:
I was talking about the RPG elements as far as combat goes, because ME2 plays like a typical third person shooter. Should have been more specific. The dialogue trees are fine.Gruchul said:
Yeah, I was intrigued by this, too. I unfortunately don't have enough experience with either game to make a sound judgment, but it's hard to imagine how Dead Rising 2 expanded over the original any more than Brotherhood did over the Assassin's Creed series. If anyone can explain why this wouldn't be the case, I'd really appreciate it.KingofallCosmos said:
Oh well New Vegas will always be the greatest game to come out in the past few years for me. The lore was delicious and the choices were done better than any other game I've ever played.
For me personally I ignored Dead Rising 2 for one huge reason...Dynasty Warriors 7.
For me personally I ignored Dead Rising 2 for one huge reason...Dynasty Warriors 7.
I actually thought for a second during last weeks video that Super Mario Galaxy 2 would win, because you said there were only two games you felt like playing again, and I do think you used SMG2 as an example of a game you would like to play later in Extra Punctuation.
You know, I actually saw the Lizard Trial out of context and enjoyed it. I still don't have any motivation to play the actual game though.
You know, I actually saw the Lizard Trial out of context and enjoyed it. I still don't have any motivation to play the actual game though.
*also raises hand*GrinningManiac said:
We had to learn it as apart of our marching band show my Sophomore year of high school...
Why? Because Avatar is a bad movie? That's why I guess it's the highest grossing movie of all time.Scarecrow 8 said:
Fact is I loved ME2, and it's probably on the top 5 games of all time list, but I do see what they did there. Nothing in the game or story is original, but everything is handled so well, you can't deny it's praise.
Mass Effect 2...bad voice acting..wut?
Did you hear Mordin Solace throughout that game?
The only stupid thing about Mass Effect was everyone in the universe speaking english.
Did you hear Mordin Solace throughout that game?
The only stupid thing about Mass Effect was everyone in the universe speaking english.
I must say, Yahtzee, I expected there to be an "honorable mention" of Mass Effect 2. Maybe it's because I really love the series to the point where Mass Effect 2 could quite possibly supplant Final Fantasy 7 as my favorite game of all time, but I thought that you really liked the game as well. Then again, you DID mention in your review that Bioware gets no points for spectacular storytelling.
I can see where you're coming from, though, in your commentary on how the game's graphics were eerily Uncanny Valley at times, as apparently there was some glitching in the game's rendering system that kept a lot of the motion capture for the faces getting through. Most glaringly was on Miranda, who was one of my favorite characters in the game. I only wish that Mass Effect 2's graphic were like the intro cinematic to the game or from the previews. When I first booted the game up and saw those beautiful graphics, I was like "FINALLY, something on the 360 to compare to the PS3's best", but then the ACTUAL game kicked in and I saw that it was merely a bit of a facelift and touch-up from Mass Effect's graphics.
I, however, have high hopes for Mass Effect 3. Bioware's said that they're gonna polish up a lot of what made ME2 great while also reintroducing and expanding a lot of the RPG elements that have been sorely missing from the first game. With luck, we'll at least get a decent inventory system this time around...
I can see where you're coming from, though, in your commentary on how the game's graphics were eerily Uncanny Valley at times, as apparently there was some glitching in the game's rendering system that kept a lot of the motion capture for the faces getting through. Most glaringly was on Miranda, who was one of my favorite characters in the game. I only wish that Mass Effect 2's graphic were like the intro cinematic to the game or from the previews. When I first booted the game up and saw those beautiful graphics, I was like "FINALLY, something on the 360 to compare to the PS3's best", but then the ACTUAL game kicked in and I saw that it was merely a bit of a facelift and touch-up from Mass Effect's graphics.
I, however, have high hopes for Mass Effect 3. Bioware's said that they're gonna polish up a lot of what made ME2 great while also reintroducing and expanding a lot of the RPG elements that have been sorely missing from the first game. With luck, we'll at least get a decent inventory system this time around...
Modern Warfare 2 was one of the highest grossing console games of all time, and that was terrible.Nomanslander said:
Sure, cinematic, but the locations were down from MW1, the difficulty was just MOAR ENEMIES!! And did you see how many times they did that 'jump to helicopter/building/etc, miss and dude grabs your hand'?! First time it was woah! But too bad that was in CoD4, not MW2. MW2 used it so often it became boring very, very quickly.
Avatar was Oooo, shiny. Then halfway through you realise that there's better movies with shiny AND story. I'd call MW2 the Avatar of video games, and mean it as.. Insult would be putting it mildly.
This is just a rant against Avatar, already called ME2 pretentious, any more insults that way and this post will be two rants.
"teh lulz" man, teh. If it's lulz then it's teh otherwise you spoil it with proper spelling.ZippyDSMlee said:
Surprised he didn't make a mention of PoP-FoggySands
Went from: oo, platforming
to: shite ending
Too middling, I guess...
Went from: oo, platforming
to: shite ending
Too middling, I guess...
As much as I enjoyed Mass Effect 2 it did feel like less of a game set in space and more of a game set in a subway.
A horrible subway with bombings and kidnappings in it, but a subway never the less. The walls of whatever I was in defined the feeling that outside them was this incredible big thing.
Perhaps a subway is the wrong word: the star map was like taking trains from one city to another, and the system maps was like taking the subway. Get out of the door. Walk to the train station. Stop at the shops. I almost expect to see ticket machines and people pulling screaming children and suitcases. Maybe the add on packs and DLC remedied that, but that's still closing the door after the horse has bolted.
I still love it to bits, the story is gripping and even the sum of frustrations in it don't deter me from wanting to play ME & ME2 through on PC. It just really doesn't feel like a space game, even compared to Elite.
A horrible subway with bombings and kidnappings in it, but a subway never the less. The walls of whatever I was in defined the feeling that outside them was this incredible big thing.
Perhaps a subway is the wrong word: the star map was like taking trains from one city to another, and the system maps was like taking the subway. Get out of the door. Walk to the train station. Stop at the shops. I almost expect to see ticket machines and people pulling screaming children and suitcases. Maybe the add on packs and DLC remedied that, but that's still closing the door after the horse has bolted.
I still love it to bits, the story is gripping and even the sum of frustrations in it don't deter me from wanting to play ME & ME2 through on PC. It just really doesn't feel like a space game, even compared to Elite.