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Crane Fist posted:This is also a really good summary of why I liked DA2 as much as I did. Everyone is just terrible, all the time.
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May 13, 2013 21:43
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Castlequest for NES was an enormous, complex nonlinear maze game full of difficult puzzles, and it's very easy to make the game unable to be completed by wasting a key or two in the wrong doors. The game also had no save feature, looked like crap, had a single music track that was a major earworm and played throughout the entire game, and had very attractive and misleading boxart. There were a lot of disappointed kids who picked this up expecting something like Castlevania, but I think it's a fun game to get completely lost in and give another try every now and then, getting a little further each time. I've never beaten it. The Nightmare of Druaga on PS2 is one of those games that makes you wonder why it was localized at all. It's a roguelike based on an old Namco arcade game that is infamously obtuse and unfair, and also not well-known outside of Japan. It went over with reviewers about as well as you'd expect, but it's maybe the best roguelike I've ever played, and I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in that genre. It's extremely challenging but fair, and has a great gloomy/campy 1st edition D&D sort of feel. The layout of the dungeons isn't randomized (except for optional bonus floors and sidequests), and it even does the whole "fulfill some obscure and invisible condition to make bonus chests appear" thing from Tower of Druaga—but since it's not essential to do this, it's actually fun. gameplay video Rollersnake has a new favorite as of 22:00 on May 13, 2013 |
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May 13, 2013 21:56
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Admiral Bosch posted:Draw your sword, sir. Draw it I shall. I prefer the music from the GBC version to the NES one, and if I'm remembering correctly the plot was expanded, so that's a plus as well. I'm pretty sure the menus were improved as well. The only downside was the reduced resolution, which only made the game slightly harder. I still got to (but never beat, unfortunately) the real final boss, and I was never that good at video games, so it couldn't have been that much worse. Honestly, it's probably just nostalgia talking, but you've apparently got ten more years of nostalgia than me, so I win.  Also, part of it is probably that it's the only version I owned.
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May 13, 2013 21:59
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Inspector Zenigata has a new favorite as of 07:41 on Apr 3, 2014 |
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May 13, 2013 22:09
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Teavian posted:Also, part of it is probably that it's the only version I owned. Wasn't the real final boss taken out of the GBC one, and it ends after you fight the dragon guy? It's still a cool game either way though. How about this poo poo: 8 Eyes    Widely regarded as a weird, bad, extremely difficult Castlevania knockoff. The controls are clunky, you're constantly being outmaneuvered, there's a pointless Megaman-style upgrade system that does nothing except punish you for not guessing the right order of levels, and the rhythm of the swordfights is super odd; it's nearly impossible to beat without exploiting the way invulnerable frames work. But I kind of love it if only for the two player gimmick (Player 2 controls the falcon!) and the killer presentation, with some of the best most distinctive pixel art on the NES.  After you beat a boss, the two of you sit down for tea, served by a skeleton butler. 10/10
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May 13, 2013 22:19
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Crane Fist posted:This is also a really good summary of why I liked DA2 as much as I did. Everyone is just terrible, all the time. There's a legend that in the early 90s when Disney's renaissance was in full force, a second-tier animation studio discovered that test audiences gave footage of their film a tremendously higher score if they showed the Disney logo before the footage. If Dragon Age 2 had been released with the Obsidian logo at the beginning and nothing else changed I think people would still be praising it for being a brilliant deconstruction. Kimmalah posted:I didn't realize there was so much rage about the cel shading thing. Most of the gnashing of teeth I've heard for the Borderlands franchise has been people absolutely outraged that there are JOKES in their games. Most people weren't complaining about jokes, they were complaining that the devs thought that internet memes, "random" humor, and a literal catchphrase machine were an acceptable substitute for actual jokes. Alouicious posted:Anyway, I fuckin' love the new Syndicate. No, I never played the original Jaguar/PC game, I don't care to either. But the setting and gameplay of the reboot just appeals to me on a fundamental level. It's basically my cyberpunk hold-over to keep me sated until Cyberpunk 2077. Project Snowblind was the same for me. It started its life as a multiplayer-focused Deus Ex spinoff, and while the singe player is nothing amazing the sheer amount of options in multiplayer is staggering.
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May 13, 2013 22:23
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Jimson posted:One more I wanted to talk about. loving yeah Phantom Dust! It was a fantastic arena action game with randomized CCG elements and a stupid but loveable story.
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May 13, 2013 22:30
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Alouicious posted:Anyway, I fuckin' love the new Syndicate. No, I never played the original Jaguar/PC game, I don't care to either. That's why you love the new Syndicate.
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May 13, 2013 22:31
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swamp waste posted:Wasn't the real final boss taken out of the GBC one, and it ends after you fight the dragon guy? It's still a cool game either way though. I'm pretty sure that you fight the original final boss, go through a new dungeon, and fight the final boss which I think might have been the second form of the original penultimate boss. I know I have what is probably a wrong opinion, but whatever, I'm not changing it.
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May 13, 2013 22:54
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Jimson posted:One more I wanted to talk about. Soul Sacrifice for the Vita is basically a new Phantom Dust. Slightly less random since you pick six skills in advance instead of creating a deck, but the game plays super similarly. No one realizes this since I'm the only person I know with a copy of Phantom Dust. It's awesome.
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May 13, 2013 22:56
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Too Human is a jack-of-all-trades game, not doing any one thing particularly innovative or even well, but it does enough things capably to be fun. This is holds especially true if playing in short bursts. Although my first playthrough was pretty much in a single weekend, I'm enjoying it more when I walk away after completing a level. I admit that I'm a sucker for Norse mythology, so that probably plays a role, but it really only comes out in cutscenes. For the majority the the game, I'm an increasingly powerful action dude, sliding between chumps, striking them down with fury. Fans of the Dynasty Warriors games will find a a similar, enjoyable experience with Too Human. That, or I just like crappy hack-and-slash games set against a mythological (or fictionalized historical) backdrop.
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May 14, 2013 01:54
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Fable 2 and 3. I love how incredibly stupid the NPCs are. You could be a murderous super villain who spent hours slaughtering innocent bystanders, but you could make them love you by dancing a silly jig enough times. Also it's super easy and fun to break the game's economy.
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May 14, 2013 02:12
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I think Metroid II (GameBoy) was a really drat good game, one of my favorite games of all time even. I'm not sure that it's poorly received per se, but it's definitely overlooked a lot by Metroid fans. It's easily my favorite Metroid though. All of the environments look similar, which makes you get lost easily. This is actually good because it makes you feel like you really are alone on an alien planet. The music is eerie, the environments are huge, and the enemy designs are creepy too. Sometimes the atmosphere in the game is so intense that I actually felt scared, which is pretty impressive for a GB game. I also liked the whole "hunting" feel of the game: the whole purpose of the game is to eradicate the planet of all Metroids, and each time you kill one the counter goes down by one. It gives off a real sense of progress. I liked how the focus of the game was really on killing all Metroids, unlike the weirdness of the newer games in the series.
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May 14, 2013 02:20
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grittyreboot posted:Fable 2 and 3. I love how incredibly stupid the NPCs are. You could be a murderous super villain who spent hours slaughtering innocent bystanders, but you could make them love you by dancing a silly jig enough times. Fable 3 has a special place in my heart for the "Henry VIII" achievement. You had to marry 6 different characters, and kill 2 of them. I was already the King of Albion and need 1 more so I went down to the brothel, married a whore, took her out to the docks and shot her so her body fell in the water. Achievement successful! When telling that story to one of my friends he just stared at me with a shocked look on his face.
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May 14, 2013 02:24
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The Path. I'm pretty much a sucker for a well told Little Red Riding Hood story, and the artsy-ness of the game in general really appealed to me. I can see why people don't really like it, since it doesn't really play like a normal videogame at all (no combat, no enemies, just getting lost in the woods).
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May 14, 2013 02:26
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I loved Slave Zero on the Dreamcast. It was hideous looking, sported terrible level design and collision detection, but I actually felt the sense of post-apocalyptic hopelessness the plot was trying to purvey. Also, there weren't a whole bunch of games back then (on consoles anyway) where you could run around as a machine gun/steel girder toting robot.
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May 14, 2013 02:37
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Barehanded Brother posted:For me, it's NBA Hangtime for the Nintendo 64. It's the spiritual successor to NBA Jam, made by the same company (Midway) and using the same core gameplay, but somehow nobody gets all nostalgic for it like they do with Jam, to the point where people don't even know it exists. Friends who are diehard Jam fans look at me funny when I try to join in and talk about Hangtime, to the point where they deny that even if it does exist, it couldn't have been made by the same company because WHY NOT CALL IT JAM? Me and my friends all still play this and it is easily my favorite sports game ever. Play 2 people vs the computer and use the unlimited turbo code. Proceed to get team fire over and over again. Our best score was something like 150-23.
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May 14, 2013 02:50
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That, and it gets consistently average to below-average reviews on Gamespot and other publications that existed when the N64 was around.
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Old West posted:God Hand is one of the best poorly received games out there. The game came out to mixed reviews, some being extremely poor, such as IGN's 30/100. The points the reviewer brings up are valid, but are also the same reason I love the game. This is one of the best beat-em-ups I've ever played. God Hand at least in the circles I've seen, is pretty famous as an awesomely tight game. Also the plotline is so brainless and anime it becomes part of the game's charm.
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May 14, 2013 02:58
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Spy Fiction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spy_Fiction is one of the most fun games I've ever played. I enjoyed the action aspect, but the stealth and story are just so over-the-top. You get to do all kinds of stereotypical spy things like rappel-navigating into a vault through laser beams, parachuting into a guarded base, etc. You have many crazy spy gadgets and probably the best part is you are able to disguise yourself as any other person in the game. If you can see someone, you can morph into them (I can't recall the "science" behind this). A few of the missions actually require you do this. There are also two different playable characters, so you can play the game a second time for a very different experience. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes "spy fiction" or stuff like Metal Gear, James Bond, Mission Impossible, etc.
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May 14, 2013 05:01
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I genuinely enjoyed playing Sonic Heroes, Sonic Adventures 1 & 2. I beat each one to completion, thinking that all my deaths were my fault. After I beat heroes up my family got high speed internet, started reading forums and I discovered I actually wasn't bad at the game, that everyone had the same issues haven't played a Sonic Game since. But there are still parts of each game I enjoy.
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May 14, 2013 06:06
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...of SCIENCE! posted:There's a legend that in the early 90s when Disney's renaissance was in full force, a second-tier animation studio discovered that test audiences gave footage of their film a tremendously higher score if they showed the Disney logo before the footage. Obsidian wouldn't have Gaider passing DA2 off as a heroic journey and showing how legends are made.
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May 14, 2013 06:12
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Improbable Lobster posted:Syndicate is so great. It nails the cyberpunk aesthetic perfectly and it has some of the best co-op I've ever had the pleasure to play. I think Syndicate WAS actually fairly well received because of that alone, the coop was pretty much universally considered fairly brilliant. Honestly the best part of the game was that the combat has this really odd pacing to it where you were always doing something, the way the hacking system worked, even if you were sitting behind a wall taking cover, you weren't just waiting for your health to regen, you were actually hacking people's brains with your DART chip activated so that you could see through the piece of cover you were behind. It was an incredibly frenetic game that made it feel like you were in these absurd gunfights between corporate soldiers and superhuman agents. The boss fights in the campaign were pretty drat great too. Oh, and let's not forget the minigun, that god drat thing FELT like you just pulled off the weaponry of an Apache helicopter and started blowing people to bits with it. Honestly, the way that game stayed true to its source material was by taking every possible step to make sure that you felt like an agent, instead of a just some dumb mook with guns. EDIT: Oh, also the original Syndicate was an incredibly dumb game that took no strategy and was generally pathetically easy and was more of a top down squad based shooter than anything resembling a proper strategy game, but it was still god drat fun as hell. So I don't understand what the issue is, it's not like they very fundamentally misunderstood the reason why the game existed, unlike Fallout 3 or something. Lil Swamp Booger Baby has a new favorite as of 06:32 on May 14, 2013 |
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May 14, 2013 06:26
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Steel Battalion Heavy Armor is the best Kinect game to date, and it's got like 20/100 on metacritic. The controls rarely work, but when they do it's an amazing game. You command a mech with a crew of three, pushing buttons and pulling levers, occasionally shoving a shell into the cannon if your loader dies and fist bumping your radio guy. It's awesomely unforgiving (stray bullets can hit the 5x5" porthole window and kill everyone inside, there's permadeath, no way to resupply during a mission to repair or get ammunition) but also really immersive and memorable.
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May 14, 2013 06:30
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I'm a big fan of the Dynasty Warriors series. There's just something incredibly zen about killing thousands of Chinese peasants, or Japanese peasants, or Chinese and Japanese peasants.
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May 14, 2013 06:39
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Crane Fist posted:This is also a really good summary of why I liked DA2 as much as I did. Everyone is just terrible, all the time. I liked Dragon Age 2 for entirely silly reasons then. I just liked the more challenging gameplay, better balancing, new mechanics, more interesting (though seriously hosed up) companions and sarcastic rear end in a top hat Hawke. It's a shame they didn't give it another year or two's development time so it didn't have to reuse every area over and over or have its story cut into nonsensical ribbons. I did like, however, how the Seeker thought Hawke was a genius and at the heart of a massive-scale, exquisitely planned conspiracy involving decades-long intrigues, deep cover agents and involved co-conspirators from all of the world's major groups (and it seems reasonable from the Seeker's perspective!) but really Hawke was just a giant doofus who collected thousands of mouldy scarves and couldn't walk ten feet without a catastrophe happening.
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May 14, 2013 06:46
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Paper Mario Sticker Star is certainly the lowest point in the Paper Mario series, but that doesn't really make it bad at all. The plot wasn't really there, but I honestly thought the gameplay was fine.
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May 14, 2013 06:53
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I'll throw PN03 into this list. I remember when the game was still in development, it received a bunch of comparisons to the also-in-development Starcraft Ghost. They were both third person shooters set in a futuristic environment starring an attractive female lead character. At least that's what it looked like. In reality, PN03 has much more in common with Rez and shmups than it does with the third-person action genre of early/mid 2000s console gaming. The gameplay is more about standing still and figuring out how to evade your opponents' attacks (with dancing!) than it was about being stealthy, clever, or outgunning your enemies. Unfortunately that was lost on a lot of reviewers and gamers alike since they expected a full-on action game. I won't deny that it's a pretty weird game due to its initially off-putting gameplay mechanics, but it is definitely an underappreciated gem of the GameCube library. http://youtu.be/PLrGj-KrL_0
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May 14, 2013 06:59
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Cel shading is amazing when done correctly and, like hand drawn graphics, will never age. Wind Waker will always look good and while it wasn't technically poorly received, it got a lot of hate for not being Ocarina of Time. I loved that game. I loved Ocarina of Time too and I was among those guilty of wanting it again and getting a weird cartoony sailboat game, but man Wind Waker is fun and beautiful. Speaking of the boating, I have no complaints there either. I thought it was cool.
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May 14, 2013 07:10
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HenessyHero posted:I liked Dragon Age 2 for entirely silly reasons then. I just liked the more challenging gameplay, better balancing, new mechanics, more interesting (though seriously hosed up) companions and sarcastic rear end in a top hat Hawke. It's a shame they didn't give it another year or two's development time so it didn't have to reuse every area over and over or have its story cut into nonsensical ribbons. Plus, it kept the Dragon Age tradition of having companion-specific approval, which Mass Effect desperately needed. And sometimes the way it's used is great. I love that quest where we have to help the dwarf brothers, and if you have Aveline with you, she says something like "I should be glad we offered to help, but honestly I'm getting kind of sick of having to do this all the time." (I also did think the gameplay was more fun; I liked the waves.) quote:I did like, however, how the Seeker thought Hawke was a genius and at the heart of a massive-scale, exquisitely planned conspiracy involving decades-long intrigues, deep cover agents and involved co-conspirators from all of the world's major groups (and it seems reasonable from the Seeker's perspective!) but really Hawke was just a giant doofus who collected thousands of mouldy scarves and couldn't walk ten feet without a catastrophe happening. In my mind, all that is true as well. I really loved the framing device they used for the story, too. Dragon Age II is about how heroes are made. Some dipshit ends up stumbling into a bunch of crap and then someone a lot smarter makes a good story out of it.
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May 14, 2013 07:25
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I am of the opinion that Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts would have been a breakaway hit if not for the hamfisted attempt to mold a beloved franchise into something it's not. The rest of the game is genuinely challenging, fun, and creative. The physics are wonky and hard to get used to, but fits how ridiculously vehicle designs can get out of control and still maintain balance. The game starts off with having you build simple things, little racecars, cargo trucks, motorcycles, it's not long before you're building biplanes, cargo helicopters complete with crane, giant soccerball gathering/kicking devices, multi-staged rockets, batmobile-esque tanks that can disconnect into a more mobile bike that also has retractible wings for gliding, supersick backflipping school busses with monster truck wheels and flamethrowers, balloon powered orbital death cannons, or simply a vehicles whose only conveyance is springs so you just pogo stick to wherever you need. The levels are expansive and fun to play around in, if a little hollow at times, and the soundtrack is great, despite it mostly being re-orchestrations of previous BK themes. Honestly it's my favorite, and drat near only, game for the 360. Oh, and if you get good enough, you can also make mechs.
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May 14, 2013 07:26
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No Such Thing posted:I am of the opinion that Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts would have been a breakaway hit if not for the hamfisted attempt to mold a beloved franchise into something it's not. The rest of the game is genuinely challenging, fun, and creative. The physics are wonky and hard to get used to, but fits how ridiculously vehicle designs can get out of control and still maintain balance. I do agree that it could have been great if they'd made it all original, but to me it wasn't even that it was Banjo-Kazooie that hurt it. It was that it was basically fully presented as "this is what you get instead of Banjo-Threeie", and if you gave me the choice between Nuts and Bolts and a proper entry in the series I would flatly take the latter every time without hesitation. That said, yeah, once I got over being butthurt about it not being a platformer I really enjoyed it. It was still a fun, charming game with some neat ideas and I wouldn't really be opposed to a sequel or a similar game.
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May 14, 2013 07:39
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The Steak Justice posted:Paper Mario Sticker Star is certainly the lowest point in the Paper Mario series, but that doesn't really make it bad at all. The plot wasn't really there, but I honestly thought the gameplay was fine. Are plots ever really there with mario games? 9 times outta 10 it's gonna be mario saving some princess, if not peach.
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May 14, 2013 09:33
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Pick posted:Yeah, what I love about the DA2 companions is they're people who set off every red flag (except for Aveline). Hawke has terrible friends. Literally two different friends cause two completely different wars! Well loving done you guys! The whole "Varric making stuff up to gently caress with the Seeker's head" should have been used way more often, so what at first seemed magnanimous and heroic was instead completely accidental. There also should have been a lot more stuff like being able to give Isabella over to the Arishok and how surprised everyone is when a mage PC sides with the Templars. Up until Meredith goes crazy with her demon sword the pro-templar side is literally the only right answer as every single mage encounter up to that point is an evil blood mage. It wouldn't have taken much to make the game much better in terms of dialogue, pacing, plot etc. but Bioware was so hung up on the "dark gritty action fantasy" concept they gave up on any pretense of subtly. poptart_fairy posted:Obsidian wouldn't have Gaider passing DA2 off as a heroic journey and showing how legends are made. Obsidian would've have had a lot more possibilities for conflict with your party members, like being able to smash the magic demon mirror when Merrill gets super obsessed with it or sacrificing her to the demon she summoned for some permanent upgrades.
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May 14, 2013 10:14
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What it really needed for the final conflict was a "gently caress it, you're both terrible, I'm out" option. And then you just defend your house from waves of blood mages and templars until everything blows over outside. Vampire: The Masquerade had something like that, if I recall. E: Oh, and I felt really ripped off that you don't get dialogues with your sibling/mom about your abysmal relationship decisions. I desperately wanted the conversation where your mom is just... so damned disappointed in you. Where's my mom disappointment simulator?! That also reminds me, I was shocked--shocked!--to learn most people think SimLife is practically unplayable. I loved that game and was always so proud when I could make a thriving wolfwhale or something. Good introduction to modeling! Pick has a new favorite as of 10:38 on May 14, 2013 |
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May 14, 2013 10:29
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Alouicious posted:Anyway, I fuckin' love the new Syndicate. No, I never played the original Jaguar/PC game, I don't care to either. But the setting and gameplay of the reboot just appeals to me on a fundamental level. It's basically my cyberpunk hold-over to keep me sated until Cyberpunk 2077. Yeah, same here. It scratched that cyberpunk-itch that I didn't even know I had, and I really enjoyed the whole augmented-reality aesthetic (though they probably could have done more with that). Independently from that it was also just a really solid shooter. For me, it'd be H.A.W.X. 2. It seems to be downright loathed by players of "serious" flight sims (which as it happens I enjoy as well), but I love how it just throws out any delusions of realism and goes full Top Gun. The gameplay just clicks for me, and for my part I've had much more fun with it than with the comparatively better-regarded Ace Combat: Assault Horizon.
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May 14, 2013 10:39
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I thought Raven Software's Wolfenstein and Singularity were both really fun and satisfying shooters. IGN called them "gay".
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May 14, 2013 11:10
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Doom 3 got a lot of hate, but I thought it was the best thing id software had made since the original Quake in 1996. I think people just wanted another knife-through-butter shooting gallery, and when they got monster closets, fumbling with flashlights, suffocating gloom and claustrophia, there was a lot of backlash. I personally loved it because of those things.
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May 14, 2013 12:51
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DarkCrawler posted:Enter the Matrix but only with cheats. Without cheats it's kind of terrible, with cheats you are basically Neo all the time and it's awesome. Unlimited bullet time and this kissing scene were the only cool things about this game https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrbYwlBia5k I remember being a fan of the Manhunt series. Hell, I might buy a copy for Xbox if I can find one cheap enough.
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May 14, 2013 12:53
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I unapologetically love the poorest received games in the Phantasy Star series, Phantasy Star Universe and Phantasy Star Online Episode III C.A.R.D. Revolution. I unapologetically hate the highest rated game in the series, Phantasy Star II. I played them all when they came out, to boot, didn't suffer from the nostalgia that made everyone hate PSU because it "wasn't PSO." It was odd to see kids ten years younger than me go into spasms of "but it's not like the game from my YOUTH". I've barely touched PSO II because I can't stand how in 2012, it looked like it was trying very hard to be the now 12 year old PSO, to please said people who just can't move on. Christ, gamers. I love retro games but when they receive a sequel years on I expect that sequel to look and feel cutting edge.
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May 14, 2013 13:02
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pentyne posted:"Varric making stuff up to gently caress with the Seeker's head" My favorite instance of this is when you go into the supposedly haunted house in Kirkwall, and it's just an insane sequence where Varric is blowing monsters up with a single shot before cutting back to the frame narrative with Varric saying "Nah, that's not what happened, I'm just fuckin' with ya" before going back to what really happened. I loved DA2, and it's primarily because of Varric.
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May 14, 2013 13:52
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