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Videogaming

Started by Mister Six, December 02, 2007, 10:21:12 AM

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Pseudopath

Quote from: Spiteface on December 21, 2007, 01:23:38 AM
Oh fuck, it's just dawned on me that this thread has descended into a 15-years old school playground arguement.

"The CPU in the Sega MegaDrive runs at 7.61 MHz, whereas the SNES only has a pitiful 3.56 MHz chip. That means Sega are 213% better than Nintendo. Yeah...Sega Cyber Razor Cut!"

Ah...that takes me back.

samadriel

Don't forget the Megadrive's ace in the hole -- BLAST PROCESSING!

So much for the PS3!

Fry

Hey, has anyone else given the Burnout Paradise demo a truck?

From what I've played, I am very impressed. It has some of the drawbacks that have become common in modern games (especially those of EA) e.g. the 'wacky' commentator 'DJ Atomica' with his sassy asides and 'disses'. I was also anxious about the free-roaming aspect they've stuck in there - seemingly for the sake of it, but after playing a few races and just generally pissing about on the island I am happy to see it's implemented perfecty. The actual challenges are also fantastic, I was afraid the lack of linear structure would make the races less intense, but that is not the case. Not only is there a great 'street sign' system where you can see your turns coming from a good distance, the times you do miss a turning provoke a great sense of dread and frustration "Do I do a quick 180 drift or shall I keep going and try to find a shortcut". The whole racing system has led to a completely different way of playing Burnout. It's like Test Drive Unlimited but, y'know, good.
But the best bit is the seamless XBOX live integration, to jump into an XBOX live game (with or without friends) you literally just tap the right D-Pad, and you're in. You can see 5 other little arrows of other players. And to exit you do the same, you don't even change position on the map. On XBOX live you can set up your own races around the island, own crash challenges, and there are a few pre-set 'multiplayer' challenges, which are like co-ordinated stunts that everyone has to complete co-operatively. It's completely lag-less too. One of the best small features is the integration of the XBOX Live vision camera, when you take down an online opponent it snaps the player's expression just at the point of crashing, so you can see the anger/dismay/shock/flying controller at the very moment you beat them. It adds a whole new dimension to the 'Rivalry' aspect.
What strikes me the most about the game is how complete it feels, most Xbox games have a feel you are just an unpaid beta tester, that the game is incomplete and to be fixed later, but this has every feature you could imagine, and they are all done perfectly.
It really is fucking fantastic, personally one of my favourite racing games on the XBOX.

I'm ready for my money now mr. EA




Edit: Oh yeah, the controls are spot on - balanced to perfection, the cars control beautifully, the graphics are awesome, the sound is gloriously realistic (every bump, bash, smash and grind is heard) and the wrecks are the most exciting of the series yet.


Edit 2: Oh, and the EA soundtrack is shit.

Famous Mortimer

Fry, the last line of your post is kinda what I was thinking, having played the demo last night too. I liked DJ Atomica (he's the same guy from Burnout 3, I think, so it's like welcoming back an old friend) but the actual racing itself is pretty weak. I found it difficult just finding where the races were supposed to start, and the first one I tried (a time trial) was poor- the car takes ages to wipe out and as good as the graphics look there's only so many times you can watch your car getting wrapped round a lamppost.

The rest of what you wrote I wasn't even aware was in the demo - the XBox Live stuff, the Vision camera stuff (personally, I don't get that upset playing games, so all my opponent would ever see would be a bloke with a beard concentrating), the co-operative challenges stuff. Have you played a full review copy or something? They've tried to add too much to it, I think, and it just feels...too busy. Too fussy.


Fry

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on December 21, 2007, 12:14:11 PM
Fry, the last line of your post is kinda what I was thinking, having played the demo last night too. I liked DJ Atomica (he's the same guy from Burnout 3, I think, so it's like welcoming back an old friend) but the actual racing itself is pretty weak. I found it difficult just finding where the races were supposed to start, and the first one I tried (a time trial) was poor- the car takes ages to wipe out and as good as the graphics look there's only so many times you can watch your car getting wrapped round a lamppost.
Nah, I've only played the Demo version.

Do you not think such a delay in the wipeout is needed? I mean, because the game moves so fast, with so many dangers a shorter wipeout would remove from the penalty of hitting a car at full force. If you crash and all the major components of your car stay in tact, you can drive away almsot instantaneously.
And most of the functions and features I mentioned are said in the line of text that come across the screen now and again. And said by Atomica.
And I didn't have too much trouble finding out where races start.

Famous Mortimer

With previous incarnations of the game, you could at least steer your wreck through the air, or whatever - in this one you're just expected to watch it crash. You described the other functions and features of the game as if you'd already played them - "one of the best small features..." and so on. It didn't sound to me like the language of someone who'd been reading a line of text scrolling across the bottom of the screen. How do you know its lagless if you've not played it online yet?

Fry

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on December 21, 2007, 12:46:16 PM
With previous incarnations of the game, you could at least steer your wreck through the air, or whatever - in this one you're just expected to watch it crash. You described the other functions and features of the game as if you'd already played them - "one of the best small features..." and so on. It didn't sound to me like the language of someone who'd been reading a line of text scrolling across the bottom of the screen. How do you know its lagless if you've not played it online yet?
I have played it online, what do you mean?

Famous Mortimer

I wasn't aware the demo had an online race facility, my apologies.

Fry

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on December 21, 2007, 01:35:24 PM
I wasn't aware the demo had an online race facility, my apologies.
That's ok, it's good. Just tap right on  the d-pad to try it out.

After a little searching around, it seems I am one of the only people on the whole of the internet to like this game.
But I still love it.

bill hicks

I've only given it a cursory spin but I was disappointed to be honest.

It just isn't Burnout as I know and love it. With Burnout I don't want to worry about turns and in this I was too concerned with looking at the map to see where the fuck I was going to really let loose. Burnout should be about racing at eye bleeding speeds where you literally cannot blink or you'll crash...if I'm looking at the map I can't do that.

Also DJ Atomica should be fucking raped with a sawblade. Within seconds of him beginning talking I was ready to start running myself off while thinking of his violent death. Blokes a cunt.

As a piss about GTA style game I'm sure there's some mileage there, but as Burnout it just doesn't work for me. I'm sure with some other people on Live it'll eventually click and I'll like it (it looks lovely, very fast, decent handling etc) but it isn't as good as Revenge and that makes me sad.


Pseudopath

Nothing will ever be as good as Burnout Revenge. Sniff.

Fry

Burnout 3 used to be my favourite - my baby.
But how much milage did the old burnout formula have left, really? It did need a shake-up.

Jemble Fred

I was playing Paradise City all morning, and it was glorious. No other driving game on the 360 feels quite so good – mainly because too many of them aim for a very boring kind of realism. I didn't even bother with racing or anything, just driving around, crashing and speeding was pleasure enough.

Famous Mortimer

Paradise City? Not heard of that, I'll have to check it out.

Me and a mate got together last night - I own PGR4, and we downloaded the demos of the new Need For Speed and Burnout games. Fry, Burnout looks amazing, I'll give you that, but it just doesn't play well enough for me to fork out big ££ for it. I don't think everything needs to be free-roaming...in terms of being a shake-up, if it's a good shakeup then by all means, but when you lose what made the game special (which this demo, for me, looks as if it has) then that's not good.

Still, them holding the demo back from Silver Live account holders certainly generated a bit of a buzz. The new Need For Speed doesn't look as good as Carbon, either, but that demo was only one track so I ought to give it more of a go. Stil, given that these demos are supposed to make you want to play the game, both of those failed.

Quote from: Pseudopath on December 21, 2007, 12:57:20 AM
You've pretty much summed up what I dislike about Mario's 2D adventures. There are far too many pixel-perfect jumps unnecessarily topped off with some flying bastard of a baddie, not to mention gaps which you try to jump over 20 times before realising there was an invisible question block above your head that you needed to reveal before you could ever make the jump. I don't mind a bit of difficulty in my games, but Super Mario Bros 3 and Super Mario World seemed to have a very perverse sense of challenge.

The whole point of the Sonic games was arcade action. You were supposed to whizz through the game in a couple of hours, not invest 40+ hours in finding every secret star and warp pipe like some kind of side-scrolling RPG.

That's quite interesting actually, and I'm not really going to disagree with you much. Slightly hypocritically of me, and as I've said elsewhere, I like that with Mario games you also have to go through levels again and again and again until you can master the timing/jumps etc. The Bowser castles are a perfect example of this. However, if you were good enough, you could do these levels first time round, because it's never impossibly unfair, like with obstacles hidden behind walls. If you can't get through a level, it's because you're not yet skilful enough with the controls and timing, it's not because something appears out of nowhere and kills you.

I take your point though about Sonic being an entirely different type of game, more arcade-style. I am really rather enjoying Sonic Rush Adventure on the DS actually, it's just a lot more repetitive than New Super Mario Bros on same.

This could be the most diplomatic 'ner ner ner ner ner' yet.

Geraint

I think Super Mario World in particular manages to be reasonably challenging without a single one of those frustrating 'leaps of faith' you mention - the game gives you the option to scroll the screen on with the L+R buttons but it's not needed at any point in the game - so long as you're not blindly charging through each level you can always see exactly what you need to do, and the only real difficulty in 99% of the jumps comes from enemies lurking nearby.

as has been said though, it's a bit of a daft argument because they were both good, but different series of platformers. which one is 'best' depends entirely on your own gaming preferences

Jemble Fred

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on December 21, 2007, 02:38:28 PM
Paradise City? Not heard of that, I'll have to check it out.

Sorry, I meant Burnout Paradise. The constant use of that song mixed me up.

Still Not George

Quote from: Geraint on December 21, 2007, 02:47:56 PM
I think Super Mario World in particular manages to be reasonably challenging without a single one of those frustrating 'leaps of faith' you mention - the game gives you the option to scroll the screen on with the L+R buttons but it's not needed at any point in the game - so long as you're not blindly charging through each level you can always see exactly what you need to do, and the only real difficulty in 99% of the jumps comes from enemies lurking nearby.
Not entirely sure about SMW, but SM3 definitely had a few of those - in particular jumps which involve bouncing off flying enemies which are just-offscreen when the jump begins. It's not that awful, because as long as you time it normally they always spawn in the same place (thus making the jump effectively a normal one), but it does typically force at least 1 loss of life before you figure it out.

That's fair, I suppose. Particularly in the automatically-scrolling levels. 1-3 springs to mind.

buntyman

OK Sensible Soccer is back up and working now on Xbox Live. Lets have some games! If enough people are interested, a tournament might be a good idea.

Quote from: Fry on December 21, 2007, 12:02:11 PM
What strikes me the most about the game is how complete it feels, most Xbox games have a feel you are just an unpaid beta tester, that the game is incomplete and to be fixed later, but this has every feature you could imagine, and they are all done perfectly.

A friend of mine joined the EA beta testing team in Crawley on this game and promptly found 50% of all the bugs, which may go some way to explaining why this one is particularly stable. Most of the beta testers are £6.50 a hour stoners, which is why things get released that you can only think "how did this get past anyone?". It's because they weren't paying attention.


However, I wasn't impressed by the demo. I'm a Burnout Revenge regular and the system on that is just perfect. Lobbies so you can open up a room and wait for who you want to play rather than just whoever you get logged in with, a ranking system so you can see whether the people you're about to race are either significantly better or significantly worse than you and specific tracks that you learn inside out rather than an open world with markers set by the host. Also, Burnout Revenge has a delightful bug which allows you to up your speed to 250mph+ if you hit the break and drift just at the right time off a jump - a technique which makes being good at the game online an actual skill. This one has gotten rid of all of that and just expects everyone racing at the same speed with no ranking or competition to be as fun - I can't imagine how it could be.

All they needed to do for this one is improve the graphics (if they hadn't gone for an open world, they could have been even better), have a fuckload of different tracks (lets say double the amount in Revenge) and sort out the servers so that disconnecting accidentally in a game doesn't half your ranking.


Surprised that so many of you are suddenly talking up Revenge - I mentioned it once before but all I got was someone calling it SUPER BLURRY STRAIGHT LINE 4! or something. We should all have a game (which I will win, obviously).

bill hicks

I haven't played in ages because I got to a point where I needed to Gold Medal Perfect a traffic check race and found it utterly impossible. As a result I ended up punching a hole in my bedroom wall in frustration and vowed not to touch it again.

Whenever I look at my achievements list and see that stark Burnout Revenge: 415/1000 I die a little inside.

Slaaaaabs

The Burnout Paradise demo didn't impress me much either, it seems to be quite a common opinion across these internets. So much so that Alex Ward, him what is in charge of Criterion has thrown all his toys out of his pram...

http://www.criteriongames.com/burnout/paradise/demo/merrychristmas/

Sure there are some idiots out there who take it to extremes, but he is outright dismissing some genuine criticism of the game (lack of retry/restart and the ridiculous "showtime" mode)

Famous Mortimer

I'm trying not to form too many opinions on it til I've actually seen it, but the Region Legion put it pretty well. The thing with driving games is I want tracks I can learn, different cars whose abilities on those tracks I also can learn, nice graphics, and preferably songs I don't get annoyed of on the 30th listen.

This from the Criterion games blog:

QuotePersonally speaking, I don't believe it is possible to even capture the essence of this new Burnout experience (and I use the word 'experience' there deliberately because this new Burnout is an experience that YOU choose how to play rather than us forcing a game structure on you - when the rest of you get to play the full game I am confident you will agree) in a single demo. So we picked a couple of things and a small area in which to play.
Am I a games designer? No. Some games require a game structure forcing on the players, it's one of the reasons I play these damn games.

Still Not George

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on December 24, 2007, 08:13:57 AM
I'm trying not to form too many opinions on it til I've actually seen it, but the Region Legion put it pretty well. The thing with driving games is I want tracks I can learn, different cars whose abilities on those tracks I also can learn, nice graphics, and preferably songs I don't get annoyed of on the 30th listen.
But you probably won't get much in the way of any of those in a demo. Which was kind of the Criterion guy's main complaint - people are howling about things that you really can't expect from a demo.
TBH I reckon it was a mistake releasing the demo at all, it seems counter-productive for a sandbox style game cos a chunk of a sandbox is always going to feel a bit bare and rubbish.

Still Not George

Oh, and because no-one else has mentioned it yet:

Duke Nukem Forever Trailer

He's looking for some alien toilet to park his bricks apparently. *shudder*

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Just look at the original demo of Midtown Madness. About 3 blocks to explore in the dullest part of the game. Totally negates the best point of the game, causing pile-ups and storming around on free roam.

These days though I think a lot of game developers are far more astute and make the demos exciting in themselves. Some demos actually have plenty of replay value in themselves, so it's surprising to hear about this Burnout one. What's all this 'make your own game' nonsense anyway. If I really really desired the car to turn into the Sugar Puff monster who could breath fire, it's not going to let me.

I agree re: sandbox demos, almost pointless.

I also agree with Shoulders about 'make your own game' marketing speak, it's pure bullshit. Let's face it, there are no games which give you so much range you feel like you're creating your own experience, especially not a bloody driving game. Who wants that anyway? There's a reason why Stunt Car Racer is a thousand times more enjoyable than Test Drive. The point of Burnout especially is that it does very little but does it very well. SUPER STRAIGHT LINE BLUR-O-SMASH is actually enough, even though Region Legion thought I was taking the piss.

At a stretch, I'd say Oblivion came closest to convincing me that I was really interacting, that I was uncovering new ground but ultimately it's just a very complex variation on Choose Your Own Adventure books. It's a great illusion and I played that solidly for about five days last winter, about 16 hours a day or something, it was too cold to go out. I thought it was incredible at the time but then after I'd spent about four hours just mixing cheese and fruit and stuff to upgrade whatever attribute so I could wear some ring which would help me in yet another identical dungeon, I just stopped and uninstalled it. I thought about Romanians getting paid minimum wage to level-grind for American teenagers and realised that I was actually doing that for 'fun'. I'd earlier almost had the same revelation when I went out for lunch and left a book holding down whatever key makes you run. I came back to see my guy still running in the corner of some house as his stamina and endurance went up and I just pissed myself.

Now, the obvious question is: why the fuck did you do that shit when there's loads of monsters you could be killing? Well, here's my point. The lack of driving narrative just highlights how repetitive the game is. There's no real sense of progression, even when you are levelling up. As someone said recently, a real shitter is how the enemies also level up so the challenge is virtually the same the whole way through (or at least until the 70 or so hours I put into it). I assume there's some very deliberate thinking behind this but it's an error, in my opinion. There's nothing to work towards. Even taking something as linear as Final Fantasy 7, there are a fair few rock-hard peripheral rewards to work for, e.g. defeating the Weapons. I never felt rewarded or punished for doing anything in Oblivion; beyond the initial illusion, I think the 'make your own game' schtick effectively means 'very shallow gaming'.

I've said this before but I think that games need a firm narrative structure to maintain my interest. Even something like GTA is too wishy-washy for me. I simply can't be bothered driving across the city to get the next mission, especially when it turns out to be a very minor variation on something you've done fifty times already in the series. Maybe I've got ADHD but I don't want to get a haircut or go to the FUCKING GYM when I'm playing a game, I want to get stuck into something that's been carefully designed to challenge my gaming ability. I think GTA, like Oblivion, really suffers from ignoring the basic tenet of games: you mustn't feel like you're in bed, paralysed from the chin down, telling your nan how to control your character. I really hope that GTA4 will address the utterly shit controls, in the same way RE4 binned the apologist jerk-off controls and came up with something genuinely responsive and fun to play with.

And that's all of that, then.

Famous Mortimer

Quote from: The Boston Crab on December 24, 2007, 11:33:06 AM
As someone said recently, a real shitter is how the enemies also level up so the challenge is virtually the same the whole way through (or at least until the 70 or so hours I put into it). I assume there's some very deliberate thinking behind this but it's an error, in my opinion.
I had a discussion with my mate about this, and I had my mind changed: I thought it was crap at first, but the world levelling up with you means you don't miss a load of quests because they're too low level for you. It's a bit daft when you get a bandit wielding a Daedric battleaxe, but the rest of it works.

Quote from: Still Not GeorgeWhich was kind of the Criterion guy's main complaint - people are howling about things that you really can't expect from a demo.
What I expected from the demo was a taste of how the game played, and I got that. Of course I don't expect the whole learning curve thing from a demo, and that wasn't part of my original complaint. The demo played badly, was confusingly laid out and ditched too many of the things that made the rest of the series great. My mate who played the demo alongside me will buy it as he didn't feel that negatively towards it, so I'm aware my opinion's not the only one.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

I can't speak about Oblivion so much as Morrowind, but the basic form of the game and the open ended freedom remains the same. Even though there is no sense of progression, the game is about exploration and finding things in strange places and it actually lets you get up to stuff the game wasn't primarily designed for. And I absolutely love doing that, all my favourite games have some element of this.

That's where the fun lies in Morrowind anyway. I agree that the central story is a series of menial tasks that outside of the combat parts are very boring. Yet I've spent hundreds of hours playing it. The only way you can explain that must be to admit that there is value contained within.

My ideal medieval style RPG would be some sort of Morrowind/Fable splice of each games best elements. That would take a PC or console that currently doesn't exist, probably. I enjoy the adventure and the story elements of the RPG scene but the slightly 'geekier' elements shall we say, translated from the older style rpg computer games, and board/card games don't interest me.