Video Game Book Club (no books required)

The inaugural Duder's Perspective Games are....

Deus Ex: Human Revolution and The Fall

Hey Dudes

So I was reading in the forums about games or game franchises that have passed you by whether you couldn't afford it at the time, no access to it, or maybe like me you have been wasting away not being able to pry yourself from the repetition of destiny that just controls too good to stop and it got me thinking. Would any of you be interested in a monthly older game book club of types? Here is how I would imagine it working.

We list games that we should play based on what we haven't or would like to go back through then vote on which one we play. Next, we would take a month to finish the game and all meet back here to talk about the game what we liked? or hated? or wished it did differently or even just what place it has had on history.

I know certain games I only really get through with the help of the social aspect or "water cooler" talk and thought this would be a good way to bring that feeling to some older games.

What do ya'll think?

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Alright well this took off and has become larger than I ever thought it would in just a couple of days so to clear things up this is the format as of now.

1) You have games that are older and want to play, or games that you want to play again and think others shouldn't have missed out on.

2) A Duder's Prerspective < This is the link to the google doc where we have listed out the games we want to play, there is a sheet for AAA (or longer) games and a sheet for "Indie" (or shorter) games. Fill out as much as you would like on the spreadsheet and the rest of us will fill in the gaps.

3) From there the next two pages on the spreadsheet consist of the voting pages first is AAA second is Indie, list your top 5 games in order of what you want to play. Scoring will be 1st place votes get 5 points, 2nd place gets 4, 3rd place gets 3 and so on. The scores will be added up and the game will be chosen based on the highest score, you can add or edit your list up until voting closes (The first found of voting will close on Monday 7/13 at 10 pm Eastern)

After the game has been chosen we can figure out a reasonable time frame to complete the game and have discussion checkpoints about the game. The AAA game will probably variable in length where as the Indie games I would like to keep closer to a week or two just to keep the momentum rolling. This will remain a thread for general discussion or ideas on how this could be run better, changes to the format, and announcements for what games we are currently playing through. Once the games are chose the threads for those games will be created and Titled "A Duder's Perspective: (insert game)" credit to @oscar__explosion for the name. That way discussions in that thread will only pertain to that game and if you haven't started the game yet you know what thread to avoid if you don't want anything spoiled.

I know not everyone will have access to everything, but we are gonna try our hardest to make this as inclusive as it can be. The list is completely open to anything you want to add and there will be an accessibility rating system in the sheet to help see how easy it should be to access at a glance.

A special thanks to @hypnotoadbrwowrowrow for coming up with a way to score a games accessibility rating:

• Platform (1/3/4)
  • 4 = Current Gen. x2 + Last Gen x2 (typically includes PC); iOS
  • 3 = Concurrent Gen x2 (typically includes PC); PC + Multi Gen;
  • 1 = Only 2 Platforms; Only PC
• Playtime (1/2/3) [indie in parenthesis]
  • 1 = 20+ hrs (0-4.5)
  • 2 = 11-19 hrs (5-8)
  • 3 = 0-10 hrs (9-11)
• Price (1/2/3)
  • 3 = $0-5
  • 2 = $6-10
  • 1 = $10-15
  • 0 = $16+
  Past Free Game (+1)
  • +1 = If it has previously been a PS+ or Game w/ Gold (regardless of generation)
• Final Rating (0-10)
  • Gold = 9-10
  • Silver = 7-8
  • Bronze = 5-6

@dkessler175: Video Game book club sounds so dumb haha but ya this would be a fun thing to do I will probably not finish the game unless it was a game I really wanted to play but this can definitely kick start me into a game I been holding off on like Deus ex human revolution

Yeah I am open to other titles but I wrote it, laughed, shrugged, and moved on haha

Sure. Set up a Google Doc, ask for submissions, and randomize that shit.

I nominate Nier.

Man, I barely have time to play current games.

Not that I'm not fully behind this idea. I just won't be able to participate. Such is the transition into adulthood.

Sounds like a fun idea. Maybe to start we should do games that are pretty easy to get/cheap enough to buy and on multiple playforms so we can get more people to participate.

I nominate Papo & Yo. It's story-based, apparently not too long, and it's 85% off on the Humble Store (but I think a lot of people have it already anyway).

yeah this is something i've always thought about but also just waited for someone else to organise it because i didn't want to

i'd be all for it it sounds real cool

Nier is very hard to find, brotherman. That, and it almost requires multiple, many-hours-long playthroughs. I've seen this kind of social group on other sites and they trend towards picking shorter, more digestible games. That doesn't mean long games are impossible or bad picks, but the reality of it is that most people won't have enough time to complete a game such as Nier in a prompt or timely fashion.

That said, I think this is a great idea, and could be excellent as a site/community feature. I'm looking straight at you, @austin_walker!

I agree that this sounds fun. While the my friends play games they don't like to really dig into them with a more critical eye. This type of discussion is something I would enjoy.

I would nominate DMC: Devil May Cry. It's still sitting sealed on my shelf and I can't imagine it would take that long to play.

@meteora3255: it can be around 10-12 hours depending on what difficulty you choose.

Also my vote goes for Matt Rorie's: Alpha Protocol.

I'd probably be down depending on thr games. The thing I would enjoy is "meeting" multiple times throughout the playthrough, if it's a regular sozed game. This way you see how opinions progress. I's also like smaller games.

I nominate costume quest as the first one.

That's a cool idea, I thought of something similar before.

It's just weird to find a balance of accessible games you may have heard of, and games no one has played.

Maybe games that are narrative heavy would be better? Just throwing ideas out there.

How do the nominations work, are we just posting them here and then someone is going through and compiling a list? I might join in depending on the game. Kinda hard to think of a short cheap game that is good but people probably haven't played yet.

I'll nominate The Talos Principle. Not sure of it's length, but from what I've seen its a pretty sweet puzzle game that I need an excuse to get to playing already. If a $40 game is too pricey and we want to keep it in a cheaper range then I'll nominate Primordia.

I'd suggest running two at once - 1 for a small game that only takes a few hours to beat (To The Moon - hint, hint) and - 2 for a much longer game such as Nier (hint, hint).

I nominate the very underrated warhammer 40k it's super short

1up did one of these almost a decade ago. In remembrance of that I nominate Republic Commando. Everyone who didn't play it needs to know the right way to build characters in an FPS and it's appropriate in the current Star Wars hype.

@blackout62: Agreed. The ending still bums me out since it's left for a sequel we will never get.

This is a really cool idea.

I'm in. I got a lot more free time these days than I should so assuming I can find the game in question, participation shouldn't be an issue.

Wow this is awesome. I hoped there would be a couple of like minded people out there but the feedback has been great. I'll set up a google doc when I get home from work. I figure I'd just set up an excel sheet with two pages one being bigger AAA games that would be a longer running feature and then page two would be maybe a shorter "indie" weekly game. I like the idea of having two games running at a time because there may be some people that can't finish a game like Mass Effect (length wise) in a month but could find the time to get all they needed out of cat lateral damage or Dave Lang's Turnover. Please keep the suggestions coming whether it is about games to play or how this should be formatted.

I've try to think of a name for this club and all I got is this:

A Duder's Perspective: The Giant Bomb monthly videogame discussion

Or just shorten it to A Duder's Perspective.

I've done this before and it's actually really fun. One of the problems with communities is often wanting to talk about a game with people but worrying you might spoil them unintentionally.

Yeah I'd be down for this. It would get me through my ridiculous back log.

Neat! I'm in.

I tried doing this with a group of friends about a year ago. I really liked the idea, but people not finishing the games in any sort of timely manner killed the idea for us almost immediately.

I certainly dig the idea and I would definitely be down to take part in it given it wouldn't be an issue of length contra how much time I can spare within a time frame. Which sort of is my fear, that longer games will be hard to do for most working people within a too limited time frame. My suggestion there might be to split the game up and do check-in between each chunk. Although at some point the whole concept loses it's intention if the group spends too long on a single game. Food for thought though.

A Duder's Perspective

This is going to be the google doc for the club, it is editable by everyone so feel free to get suggestions and notes added then we can all vote at the beginning of next week to see what the games in each category we will get started with. Really looking forward to see how this all pans out and have an excuse to play some games in my backlog. I know I have a low number of posts on these forums but I have been around here fairly regularly since 2011 and have always wanted to have more involvement at Giant Bomb so needless to say I am really excited about this.

I'd love to join in.

What sort of format would be used for the discussion? Separate threads for each game? At certain point if a single thread was used it would end up chock full of spoilers for a bunch of different games. Only question there is if the mods would approve of the additional threads.

@sunbrozak That's a good point. I really want to keep all of the traffic coming through Giant Bomb and not ask everyone to use a 3rd party for discussion. But using something like Slack might be ideal, there we could set up a group based on the game and then only post for that game are there. I guess I am not sure if that is against the forum rules either, or what the mods would prefer. Mods?

I'm really glad I thought of this one: The Walking Dead. I feel like contrary to how impressed the guys were about the game it never got a proper retrospective as they were always worried about spoiling it. Now would definitely be the time to take a look back.

This sounds like a great idea.

It would probably be a good idea to break the game up. Everyone plays through part one on week one, then part 2, etc. People would be on the same page and know what's okay to talk about and what's off limits.

@dkessler175: I figured there would be a thread per title just to make sure the discussion stays within the game(s) of the month.

Something along the lines of "A Duder's Perspective: (title of game here)

Although I don't know how you would go announceing what the next games would be.

Side note: totally love you taking my club name idea.

@oscar__explosion: This thread could be used to announce new games and the each discussion gets its own thread.

As far as voting I think there should be a randomized selection of just a few games to vote for. With this being an open document having a free vote might cause an issue where everyone votes for their game and there isn't a clear winner.

I would say randomly pick 3-4 games from the master list and then only vote on those for the next one to play.

Kinda Funny Games does this exact thing...is that where you got the idea from?

It's a cool idea, but I think this is a bit more difficult in practice than books. Like, what if I wanted to nominate a GBA game? Or something exclusive to PS3, or that requires a decent gaming PC? No matter what we're gonna play, some people won't be able to join.

It's a good idea but access to the game of the month is the biggest issue. For me, if it's not something already on Steam or any other online retailer, I'll probably pass. The easiest thing would be to choose whatever game is free on Xbox Games with Gold or Playstation Plus for the month, but I think tnat would also be less fun and not in the spirit of exploring old worthwhile titles. I'm not sure what the answer is.

@penguindust: @redhotchilimist: That was the idea behind me saying that games that are chosen should be as multiplatform as possible to get as many people as possible to join in and in the case of older games there are fairly easy ways to play said games <_< >_>

@meteora3255: I was thinking the same thing, but I'm not sure how much the mods would like that. Maybe the easiest way is to make the source doc locked up and post the games of the month there.

A bunch of people do something similar. The Patch comes to mind, although I can't recall if they did it before Kinda Funny.

I like the idea of this. I'll throw in Max Payne 3 because that game deserves more credit.

I second this. That way there is some extra discussion between the month and if someone doesn't finish the game, they can still chat about an earlier section.

#buildingthelist

Just took a look at the list and you guys are awesome!

This is going to work. This is going to work. This is going to work.

I agree with games being multi-platform to be the focus of what we play BUT I still want to see everyone's suggestions regardless because if someone wants to make a case for a game I should play I think it will be beneficial to get that feedback as well. Alright so it seems like everyone is interested in breaking up the monthly game into more weekly segments, so should we set a day for weekly feedback? say Sunday would be the day to post? For games that have chapters or acts it would be easy to say play this point, for other stuff would people be against knowing boss names? and using them as a checkpoint for the weekly discussion?

@dkessler175: I kinda feel like if we do a weekly check in every thread would start off with people talking about the games all over the place and the whole point of the threads is to talk openly about the game (thus spoilers abound)

That's my two cents about it.

I dig this idea.

@dkessler175: This is a great idea.

There are some challenges for sure, but if you keep it fairly casual (people can drop in/drop out as their schedule and game availability allows), this is an outstanding way to let people like me delve into their backlog and participate in a conversation about these games as if they were able to play them when the games were fairly new.

I look forward to trying to participate. I have a TON of game suggestions (my backlog sits at about 750 games on consoles at the moment :–O ) but I do not want to flood the list with titles.

You know what, I love this idea. I am in, gonna see about adding a title or 2

Update: There are two new pages on the sheet, one is for AAA voting the other is Indie voting. Rank your games 1st through 5th for each category if you have 5 and points will be awarded 5pts to 1st, 4pts to 2nd 3pts to 3rd and so on. Voting will close Monday 7/13 at 10 pm eastern. Ill add up the points and we will have our first two games ready to go for Tuesday morning. Feel free to keep adding games to the list and changing your votes until then. Also to whoever added costume quest to the list I promise to vote 1st for that game come October :)

@dkessler175: Add the list to the OP please (as well as voting criteria); it was hard for me to find.

Okay, agreed. We save Costume Quest for October! My votes are in. =]