Nadril

@neogamer said:

@Guided_By_Tigers said:

fat people with beards = Ryan Davis

But this picture takes the crown

I know a lot have commented on this, but how the fuck? Ryan literally had that same shirt lol.

I agree.

I can't remember where I heard it (I think it was a PAX panel a couple of years ago) but I remember someone liking it to a play or a musical. Something along the lines of "What the fuck, this gritty teen drama is suddenly just bursting into song? Totally ruined my immersion" (Grease).

I mean even though they were joking about it, it brings up a good point. I can understand the complaint of 'dissonance' sometimes, but many other times I really just don't. You get the people who complain about how "it's totally unrealistic that this guy would kill that many people" when they fail to realize that if it was more realistic it would also be really boring.

The Military (Infantry, that is)? Real life is pretty much 99% boring shit with 1% pure hell and action. That doesn't really translate into a game well.

Realism isn't always something to strive for. Personally, when I look at a game's story I'm looking at what it is trying to tell. In Bioshock Infinite Elizabeth not reacting to the constant murder never really bothered me, because they game wasn't about that. The Uncharted Series isn't trying to tell the story of some tragic tale, it's a big blockbuster-style game. The entire point is to put you into ridiculous situations with a lot going on. It doesn't really matter if Nathan Drake kills like 800 people, because him killing people isn't even hardly related to the story they are trying to tell.

Like how a musical might just interupt into song (when that'd never happen in reality) a game will interupt into gameplay that might not be a completely believable thing. It all depends on what the developers are going for.

All of that said I do think dissonance is an issue when a game actively contradicts its self on a primary story element. Some games can get around this (Far Cry 3 is seen as a satire, for example) but some games might feel a bit awkward because of it. In the new Tomb Raider the entire point of the story is you are new and young and inexperienced. When you turn around and suddenly are able to do these incredible things it's kind of weird.

If it's a more minor thing though I really don't care.

It really depends what your goal in the game is. I probably 50/50 used a guide and didn't for stuff, but my goal was always for end-game PvP stuff.

When Dark Souls II comes out I'll probably not use one at all until NG+. (still undecided to get it on PS3 or wait for PC)

Way to oversimplify something to a hilarious degree.

Brad, probably. I haven't played a decent few of the games on their lists (AC4, Saints Row 4, Papers Please, DMC, new zelda) but Brad's list is probably close to what I would do. Well, at least it has Dota 2 as #1.

I did get Papers Please and DMC from the steam sale tho, so we'll see how I feel about them :P.

For the record my top games this year would probably be something like:

• Dota 2
• The Last of Us
• Rogue Legacy
• GTA5
• Bioshock Infinite
• The Stanley Parable
• Hearthstone (still beta, I guess)

Ye buddy. Dota 2 taking over.

I'm still not sure if I like playing Dota 2 or reading angry comments from people who hate Dota 2 better though.

@mclargepants: Oh fuck man, I had totally forgotten about this.

To be fair Heirlooms are for people who have already played through that stuff a bunch and just want to get through it fast with a new character.

Like, I would not be opposed to being able to get a level 85 or 90 or w/e (placing you right before the latest expansion's content) right off the bat. I've played through the leveling stuff in WoW so many times.

It's super neat that people have managed to do something like this, but I've never really cared much about the game. It was a really fun casual game for the original and melee, but I never thought it felt all that competitive.

It seems pretty crappy to me from what I've seen so far.

The problem I have with it is there is no way to tell what level a player plays at. Sure, you can try and guess at it based off of how other players do in the game. The problem with that, of course, is that those players are also playing against better players.

Like sure, I could go into a low skill game and absolutely fucking dominate. My team would also do well since, by proxy, they would be getting assists and such from my skill. That doesn't mean that I'm a good player just because I and my team did well.

It also just takes statistics (IIRC) from your past 20 or so games. That really is not a reliable enough sample to actually figure out anything.

I'd really like for Valve to just come out with their own rating system so we'd stop getting these kind of shitty versions of them.