These Games Were Ruined By Trying to Be Movies

Kargathia

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Jul 16, 2009
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IamLEAM1983 said:
Kargathia said:
... can I nominate Shadow of Morder for a special prize? That's one example of a game that for 99% of it did the exact opposite of the "cinematic experience" (big whoop for warchiefs).

And then it pulls a 20 minute cutscene / QTE fest out of its arse for the final boss.
Eh. Twenty minutes after hours and hours of senseless Uruk-Hai genocide? Small potatoes to me. I prolonged the game's active phase for as long as I could, clearing out Captains and Warchiefs and sometimes purposefully dying so the ranks would get repopulated a little faster.

Besides, Mordor had zero penalties for dying: Sauron's Army refreshes, which means more Power points and XP available at easier levels, and you're given a hundred Power and XP for your trouble, along with being revived with full Health, Focus and Elf-Shot.

It's one of those rare games where my accidentally kicking the bucket in the middle of a huge fight only made me shrug it off, instead of bemoaning my lost progress.
On the whole my memories of SoM are very good - I also unlocked pretty much everything, and had every single chieftain in thrall when I went over to finish the game. The ending just stuck with me because it was such a contrast with the rest of game.

I personally found the death system to certainly offer incentives to not die. Most of my (relatively few) deaths were not due to being swamped, but when facing some of the trickier bosses early in the game. Knowing that an already tough encounter will be harder when you die to it certainly does something.

But regardless of how scary it was to die: it certainly wasn't annoying.

Pyrian said:
Fireaxe said:
At risk of starting an argument, I only recall one instance in Deus Ex: HR when Adam did something dumb in a cutscene was the first Zhao one, and there was a plot level explanation for that (that explanation being a CASIE implant).
How about the one at the end of the FEMA camp mission, introducing the first boss? He walks in all casual, stands around doe eyed while the bad guys have a discussion and take the elevator, then gets ambushed by a guy whose footsteps are so heavy the floor shakes as he approaches.
*shudders* baaaaaaad memories that. Especially when your first playthrough is 95% non-lethal, full sneak - and your only weapons are a stun gun and a silenced pistol with very little ammo.
 

Darkness665

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Dec 21, 2010
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Good points for the overall concept, Shamus. This is the internet so I do disagree with some of your choices. I entered GTA series at 4 and only player the earlier ones afterwards, never finishing them. Too much concern about working out, swimming and getting the right clothes. Boring. Niko was picture perfect for me. I only caused mayhem off story, and then only to try and get six stars and survive. Don't think I ever did. Played it through several times, enjoyed every one of them. Did you know when you are chasing the Russian twit that killed your weird girlfriend/dork of a cousin it would actually do a decent rage shooting of him? Yep, found that was. Well done.

DX:HR, bored out, never finished. Thief:14, read the reviews, saved my money. Other M, seriously why would anybody buy that? Turn an amazing super fighter into a "girl with issues".

The worst of this is anything lead by David Cage; French musician and horrible game designer. More focus on emotion than engine, yes he even has a talk about being the very worst at his job. Amazing. I was going to watch it but decided that I didn't want to encounter the QTEs that no story of his can exist without.
 

BlackBark

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I only really agree with Hitman Absolution on this list (haven't played Thief). While there were some aspects of DE:HR that were affected, I would hardly say that the game was ruined by them. To me, the main problem with the game was the ending and how meaningless it all seemed.

I think the GTA games have been getting better and better with each installment. I much prefer the more cinematic and story driven approach they have been taking. Otherwise, the gta games would just end up being the same thing over and over again: a playground of destruction, but that gets boring fast.

I think you really got it right with Hitman, though. It went in a completely different direction to all the previous games, but did so with a pretty average story. The Hitman stories have always barely existed and were generally just a loose pretext for some interesting assassination missions. With Absolution, the story was maybe only slightly better than normal, but this came with severely reduced gameplay elements. I realise I'm probably sounding quite contradictory based on what I said about the GTA series, but I think the difference is that GTA made a fair trade when they moved to a more story focused game, while Hitman took too much away without giving enough back in return.