That "end of an era" line had me really freaked out that someone was leaving for a minute there. Glad it's just about the new floor. *breathes a sigh of relief*
It's not that I don't like it exactly.... but 80 Days is a game that appeals to me in so many ways. Branching narrative, interesting setting, not too demanding mechanics-wise, well-written... And it's a cool game! I just never find myself actually wanting to play it. Most games that I play on my mobile devices are games I play while listening to podcasts, and that kind of makes games like 80 Days hard to play. I've made the attempt to play it without listening to anything, but it just doesn't grab me the way I wish it would. I don't know what the deal is; it's game that doesn't hold my attention enough on my own to keep me playing it, but requires so much of my attention that I can't multitask to make it more enjoyable.
Again, I don't think it's a bad game. I just wish I personally enjoyed it more.
Since my last comment, I actually thought of a couple of other games that answer this question.
Elliot Quest is one of my favorite games on the Wii U. It's kind of an homage to Zelda II, as opposed to the more popular entries of the series, and it does this homage extremely well. It does so with a relatively intriguing story that is at the very least told in an interesting way, if not entirely original itself. I've never heard anyone talk about this game, ever. It's going to be lost to time and it's just so effing good that it deserves better. I only played it because I was looking to spend some money on the e-shop a while back and it randomly caught my eye. It really flew under the radar.
If it sounds interesting to you and you don't own a Wii U, it is also available on Steam.
The other games that popped up in my head since my last comment are the Gunman Clive games. There's nothing particularly special about them, they're kind of just good Mega Man clones, but the games look so good in 3D on the 3DS that I want to recommend them to people. Also, they're like an hour or two long each and only, like, two bucks. Totally worth trying out.
There are a few Visual Novels that I think never got enough credit over here in the states. The first one that jumps to mind (as it's one that isn't a dating sim and doesn't have any of the weird sexual elements that keep most Visual Novels from coming over here at all) is called Ever17, which is something anyone with a tolerance for anime nonsense who likes crazy stories should experience.
I probably lost a lot of credibility just mentioning Visual Novels at all, given the stigma attached to them, but it really is depressing how even the good, clean ones don't get any attention over here.
As far as games that I fear will be forgotten, I don't know if there are any that I personally have an attachment to that fall into that category. Most of the games I enjoy are either huge hits or have a very dedicated cult following, and neither of those kinds of releases get forgotten very easily.
The absence of one-hit kills kind of shuts out a whole lot of casual players from the franchise. Like, that's great for all you people who hate getting cheap deaths or whatever, but for someone like me who sucks ass at FPS games and struggles to get more than a few kills in every match, the one-hit kill knife was a godsend. It meant that I could actually play the game instead of 1: Start game 2: See some guy 3: fire a billion shots at him and somehow miss with 70-99% of them 4: he fires one or two shots at me and I die immediately 5: Respawn and repeat this process to the tune of a thousand people screaming at me that I suck.
At least with the knife I could kill someone if I managed to get close to them.
I mean, I guess CoD was never for me, but it doesn't make it suck less that it's now even less playable for me. Especially when you consider that this is the game that everybody in the world plays, so anytime I go over to a friends house, they always load up the latest CoD for us to play together. At least with the one-hit kills I could accomplish something in that situation. Now it's just going to be me playing for a few hours to humor them and hoping they get bored eventually so we can do something else.
I'm really just word-vomiting up complaints here. If any of you are glad the one-hit kills are gone, I'm not saying your opinion is wrong or stupid. I just felt like throwing out my own personal experience with the franchise.
terrorism(noun) - the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes
It's a very general concept. Do yourself a favor and reclaim this definition from whatever bullshit the American political media is feeding you.
As for the people who want to remain neutral and just play video games without drama, I hear ya. It shouldn't be centered around pro- or anti-GamerGate; people just want to be "pro-video games". I think we all feel the same way, so the least we can do is condemn the harassment and threats that are happening. If those go away, all this drama goes away, too. In fact, if GamerGate had come out of the... gate with civilised discussion it would have been seen as such. And the so-called "third party" terrorism (yes, it's fucking terrorism) might have been viewed as a legitimately external third party. But that will never happen now, because we could see their actions and intentions from the beginning. On Twitter. On reddit. On 8chan. On IRC.
If you really are identifying as a gamer (whatever that truly is), you are still passively supporting the side that is attempting to make gaming more inclusive and challenging conventions that will allow for entirely new types of games from unexplored perspectives. Not the side that, for example, spent so much time making the perfect "female gaming" mascot then immediately enacting Rule 34 and drawing degrading pornographic pictures of it. What does that have to do with ethics in game journalism?
Thank you. I don't have much to add, but I agree with your comment wholeheartedly.
Jeff, the way you articulated everything wrong with this game was absolutely perfect. This is a really well-written review. "THPS5 misses the big picture, but it also gets every single little nuance wrong, too." is the exact line I think everyone has been trying to say about this game, and you found it.
I know I'm gushing over here, but I've had a bad morning and already knew this game was trash and seeing someone articulate it so well brightened up my day quite a bit.
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