gunsmoke on 18/10/2009 at 03:02
Bioshock wasn't bad, all in all. I had fun with it. I won't be buying the sequel this year, though. It'll be one of those I pick up in the late spring when there is nothing else to look forward to. It'll be fun for a week. Multiplayer? Nah.
WTF is a whoe, BTW?
Dr.Seuss reference, maybe? :joke:
Sulphur on 18/10/2009 at 08:59
I'll pick up BS2 if they do something interesting with it.
The Big Sister thingummy seems all manner of contrived from a distance, but up close and personal it's the details and execution (or lack thereof) that can make or break an idea.
I'll look to the reviews, but given how large the project and hype for it has become, those're gonna be on shaky ground. GTA IV perfect 10!!!! nevar forget
What about Dragon Age, guys. I want my sexed and bloodspattered dragon-mauled body consecrated, laid, and interred in the fresh volcanic soil of GenGaming, right under the holy Tree of Unrelenting Cynical Snark, above which the Aeroplanes of our youth soar, forever locked in their holding patterns.
SubJeff on 18/10/2009 at 12:49
You a GTA4 hater?
I haven't finished it yet but what its doing so far its doing very, very well. The plot and the characters are great too. I wonder if any of the moral brigade that moan about this stuff have played it. Niko is such a conflicted character, I love it.
Jason Moyer on 18/10/2009 at 16:07
Quote Posted by gunsmoke
Bioshock wasn't bad, all in all. I had fun with it. I won't be buying the sequel this year, though. It'll be one of those I pick up in the late spring when there is nothing else to look forward to.
So you'll get it when it comes out then?
gunsmoke on 18/10/2009 at 16:11
Quote Posted by Jason Moyer
So you'll get it when it comes out then?
Oh yeah, it got pushed back. My bad. It isn't exactly topping my radar atm.
Aerothorn on 18/10/2009 at 16:11
Can't speak for Sulphur, but I thought the writing in GTA4 was AWFUL, like a 12 year old trying to write an epic crime thriller with no understanding of cause and effect, character motivation, or subtlety. The web pages were even worse - the in-game web was extensive and would have been totally awesome if it did anything other than engage in the most contrived, banal parody.
Sulphur on 18/10/2009 at 19:38
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
You a GTA4 hater?
I don't hate it. It has plenty of things going for it. But it isn't perfect, and it can still be
massively annoying at times. The combat's still just a
little too rough and sticky when compared to other third person shooters, the driving/handling's still a
little too irritating on occasion (especially when you're forced to do a damned motorbike chase).
I also have no great fondness for the story, it's not quite as involving because while it tries to make Niko this conflicted character, the mission structure usually works against this. Oftentimes, the only resolution to any given mission is for Niko to chase down and execute someone, despite any complaints he might care to make about it.
There's also very little connective tissue linking one mission to the next, so while each serves as a great gameplay vignette, the overall story comes across as a somewhat patchwork affair, threads and seams visibly poking out from across the fabric of the narrative.
Those are most of the major complaints I have with it. The rest of the game is solid, ridiculously detailed, and technically awesome. But it's not the near perfection I'd expect from a game that's been getting a 10/10 from nearly every corner of the media.
The only game in the genre I'd say merits a rating even close to a 10 out of 10 is Mafia -- and even that was
far from perfect, but it did the whole mob story and mission design thing far better than GTA IV.
henke on 19/10/2009 at 06:55
I would agree that Mafia was more solid. But while Mafia kept me entertained for a week, any of the GTA games can keep me entertained for months. I think a perfect 10 score really needs to measure more than just how solid the game is. Say that Game A is a driving game, and it does the driving perfectly, so it deserves a 10, right? Then we have Game B which is a driving/shooting/platforming/guitarplaying/realtimestrategy game, and it does everything but the realtimestrategy perfectly. The realtimestrategy it does sloppily, thus not being perfect at everything it sets out to do. Does this mean that it does not deserve a perfect 10? Does it mean that it is a lesser game than Game A? Because that kind of thinking will punish ambitious games that try do many things instead of just perfecting one or two things.
mothra on 19/10/2009 at 11:01
here opinions differ. GTA3 and 4 did not entertain me for more than....say a few hours until I closed the program, deinstalled it from my PC and never talked or thought about them anymore because out of sheer NON-entertainment and the conclusion (for me) that both games are about the worst, most ill-designed and bland games I played in a long time with the biggest production values I've seen in a long time. But that's me. Mafia, for example, entertained me each time of the 10 playthroughs for the whole running time.
EvaUnit02 on 19/10/2009 at 13:58
What GTA4 did is take a lot of the gameplay aspects and features features that were established in the previous games and left them on the cutting room floor. The biggest omission IMO was the severe lack of checkpointed segments during long missions, this was a stable of either San Andreas or one of the PSP "expansion packs". Having to repeat tedious shit like driving all the to location over and over againis not fun.
The lack of any kind of local multiplayer, no LAN, no splitscreen, nothing. What the shit?
GTA: San Andreas, that was the pinnacle of the series as far as "lots of fun shit to do in a sandbox" goes. With GTA4 on the other hand, the sandbox was pretty barren and a lot of the "pick up and go on rampage" aspects that made the PS2-era games so much fun is pretty much dead because of the increased focus on realism (mainly due to how hard the cops are to lose).
The arcadey fun and tongue-in-cheek atmosphere was dumped in favour of dead serious, including grim dark storyline. The tone of the radio stations, internet and television utterly clashed with the gameplay and the rest of the established world.
Also f*ck the "social simulator" gameplay to hell. "NIKO, GO BOWLING WITH ME OR I'LL NO LONGER BE YOUR FRIEND!"
To be fair the amount of detail in the world itself was incredible, such as the efforts they went to with the in-game TV channels and the internet. The on-foot shooting mechanics (including the targeting system, incorporating a cover system) saw a massive improvement, as was the implementation for drive-by shooting.
The cellphone centric design was brilliant, especially giving you the option to replay missions immediately.
The vigilante side-missions in GTA4 were far better than they were in the past games, with access to police database and the like.
