haggis

Anytime a politician starts talking about "giving people choices" what they really mean is limiting choices. Truth is, none of the major studies of video games and violence have turned up anything but statistical noise. There's no visible connection. What they're looking for is the barest hint that will allow them to exert control over media. That's what politics has been reduced to these days: excuses for taking away free choice and replacing it with the decisions of some bureaucrat who supposedly knows better than we do what is good for us. Worse, it doesn't matter who is in control. They're all basically looking for the same thing.

I can't hardly believe that we're still talking about violent video games after so many privately and publicly funded studies have found nothing at all. They'll keep banging this against the wall until they get the result they want.

I wouldn't necessarily mind it taking its cues from Mass Effect so long as they 1) don't go BioWare's route and gut the RPG elements (which they seem to be promising not to do), and 2) don't force cover-shooting mechanics on every character class.

In short, I don't mind third-person, and don't mind shooting, but it can't just be another third-person shooter with RPG elements. But for those saying that it's not going to be anything like Mass Effect ... I wouldn't be so sure. But even if it is, I wouldn't be too worried about it.

I definitely didn't have a problem with getting lost due to bad level design. It always seemed obvious (maybe a little too obvious) where I was supposed to go next. Level design isn't the strong point of the series and never has been---they've always been linear levels with straightforward goals, and hubs when it comes to exploration. I don't think it got better as the games went on, but I don't think they got worse, either.

If they had better footage, they would have released it (even just a few second teaser) to reassure everyone. That they didn't suggests that they're having serious problems. I can't blame them for trying to unload the game when the market is best for it, especially if it's so bad they know it can't be salvaged. Better to scrap it than to release something lousy. But they need to recoup at least some of their investment, I suppose.

@jdh5153 said:

@FluxWaveZ said:

@jdh5153 said:

Who cares about exclusives?

Are you serious?

Yes. Everyone is all like "oh look what I have and you can't have". Who gives a fuck. There will be plenty of fun games on every console. Just play the fucking games.

I'm with you. I don't get the grousing about exclusives, since MS has been pretty up front about not bothering much with fighting for them now that the consoles are on their last stretch. Exclusives mattered more when people were choosing which console to back earlier this generation. Everyone has made the choice now, and MS doesn't care. The list of PS3 exclusives isn't exactly long either--so I doubt Sony cares much either.

Most games are multiplatform now, and have been for awhile. This is not news.

I don't get it. At the $1000 price point this suggests, it likely out-prices any next-gen console by a factor of two. And how much upgradability can you pack into such a tiny box, with all its parts custom? For $1000 you can build a pretty damned good gaming PC and plug it into your HDTV directly. So what market is this for, again? Or am I missing something?

EDIT: I know people are saying that it's not necessarily $1000, but unless it's price-competitive with consoles (ie., areound $500 with a similar performance profile) it's not going to be attractive at all. They'd have been better off coming up with a box that wirelessly streams video and input signals back and forth. Which could probably be done for a few hundred bucks.

@LackingSaint said:

Yeah I don't get how The Walking Dead can be considered a visual novel at all. The game is built around player choice and allowing them to sway the narrative and motivations of characters. I guess maybe at a stretch it's like a visual choose-your-own-adventure story?

I don't like the term "visual novel" for these sorts of things, since I think it gives the wrong impression. These things are still interactive in ways that novels and movies aren't. They're something completely different. We still "play" them in a sense, and so they're still "games" as opposed to novels and movies, which are completely passive experiences. We don't have a word yet that does them justice, which is why when most people call these things "visual novels" they mean it as a put-down, of sorts (not everyone, obviously).

It's still a game. It's a different sort of game, but it's not a novel. It's not a movie. It's more than a choose-your-own-adventure. I'm not sure exactly what it ought to be called.

@egg said:

I'm sure OP is onto something. It's one thing that puzzles are garbage in general, but even then what person who would play a game that is 90+ percent story wouldn't want it to be 100 percent story?

It would cease being a game altogether, just a series of cutscenes that we choose between. I'm not saying there's no market at all for such a thing, but I think most people who favor a game with a lot of story (and I think I'm one of these) want at least some engagement beyond the story. We want at least some challenge and interaction. TWD without those brief moments of tense gameplay would not have had the emotional impact that it did. Remove them, and it's just not the same. TWD might not have had much gameplay, but those bits that it did have were--in my opinion--crucial to the experience.

I thought the original ending was fine: not great, not lousy. Just disappointing compared to the earlier, better emotional moments in ME3 (my expectations were raised by moments like that with Mordin and with Kolyat, and the end wound up emotionally flat and cold). I liked it better after the EC, but it's still just adequate. Shepard should have been with his companions in the end, not alone, and there should have been something more personal at stake in the final moments. The end was a long info dump, more like a plot outline than an actual ending. I didn't mind the content, I just didn't think it was presented in a way that was satisfying.

So, none of the poll options seemed to fit for me.

@Catarrhal said:

Mass Effect 3, when FemShep joined Kolyat in prayer… lemme just say that was a powerful moment.

Jeeze, I'd forgotten about that moment. ME3 had at least a few like that.