KillerBears

More torn up by this than I ever could have expected to be. I've been following these guys for over a decade it seems...while our relationship was one-sided I feel like a really important presence is gone. Rest in peace, big guy.

The signal to noise ratio here is pretty astounding. Like...worse than XBLA Indie.

@NoelVeiga: This final argument is really well put, thanks. Took the words right out of my mouth.

Hey since you were asking people who didn't finish it why they stopped playing, here are my thoughts:

I stopped on the second 'ascension' or whatever type level (lots of jumping up with small hops). I gave up because I had beaten the first one, then got to the second one and thought "oh, this is the same thing I just did, but slightly harder." The gameplay wasn't changing; there wasn't a reason to keep going for me. It would have been fine if I was motivated by something else, like a compelling story or changing visuals or music or, really, anything. The levels felt exactly the same and I didn't feel like I was moving toward anything new.

The narrative you present is interesting for the first two screens, and then sort of falls off. Using the static text is an interesting way to go about it, but the stuff you write doesn't tell me much. "Where am I?" "Are there people here?" ect. Those are all thoughts I had as the player already, so when the character has them they don't tell me anything about the character or the world I'm in. Some people have called the narrative "pretentious," but I disagree. There's nothing wrong with short, simple, statements. The problem is, your game doesn't really earn the right to use simple statements, because the world itself is simple as well--simple mechanics with simple environments. All indie darlings with little narrative still work because the world itself is so deep and interesting, and itself becomes the story, but honestly your game doesn't have that. In my opinion, the least drastic thing you could change to make this game 200% more interesting to me would be to change up the narrative text. If the game had started with "I was out last night, drinking with my mates, and woke up here..." or something a bit more original and flavorful, I would have been way more interested in continuing.

Anyway, don't think I'm shitting on your game. I dig the physics, and so few people get "hold the button less to jump less" right one their first try. And again, echoing the "music is awesome" people.

Oy em going to make yough feel luv

8.8

Hell yeah, another one of these threads! They're great because you get gems like "XBL doesn't cost Microsoft any money to run" which is pretty hilarious. You go ahead and create a massive network of servers with matchmaking software (and support it) and release regular firmware updates that actually change things for the better. Tell me how free that is for you to do. Granted, they are charging more for it than it costs them to run, but that is true with any product ever. Soft drinks at McDonalds cost them like 2 cents to give you. This is America.

I pay for XBL because it's a good service. Good enough that it's worth my $50/year even though Sony's is free. Yes, I'd like XBL better if it were free. I'd also like it if gasoline were free.

(On the other hand. It's absolute bullshit that the dashboard is plastered with ads even though I pay them.)

• X Box Three Sixty.
• Game Boy Pocket Color.
• Wonder Swan.

It's not good, but it surely isn't the worst. Not by a lot. At least it's two meaningless sounds instead of silly word salad. Wii U would actually be an awesome name if they went with WiiÜ instead. That's 4 dots, mofos.

To speak to the RDR comparisons, both are a case where the main character is running from their past, but John's death in RDR is way more powerful because (A) it wasn't a cliched random event that didn't even pull off the cliche right and (B) it actually had to do with the story and you felt like it was the unavoidable conclusion. I liked the final WWII flashback and I don't have a problem with the fact that they killed off Cole, had it been done right, but the way they went about it was lazy as hell. Here, he got drowned by a force of nature...randomly, and not even in a creative or tense or foreseeable way. This is Pay It Forward levels of stupid way to kill off the main character just for the "we killed off the main character" factor.
 
Actually...
Can this thread now be about how stupid the ending to Pay It Forward was? Fuck that ending.

Software? Maybe something new with DirectX? Do they even do DirectX stuff at E3 anymore?
I have no clue what they'll bring, actually. Unless they have a bombshell and miraculously haven't had it leak yet.

I just hope it isn't more Kinect.