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My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

quote:

minimaps
LA Noire's map is vast and the minimap is no help whatsoever in navigating it. The street layout is 95% rectangular grid and all you get on the minimap is a blip on the edge. More often than not, especially for the random street crimes, your destination turns out to be all the way across the map. The only other navigational aid is your partner, and he has to be prompted and will tell you "left at the next intersection" in the time it takes you to shoot over that intersection and get halfway to the next.

It's an impressive map, mind. Just impractical.

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My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

RenegadeStyle1 posted:

I don't see how following along a map to a certain point can be hard for anyone. How do you guys even navigate menu's to get to the game?
The whole problem is that you end up following the minimap and staring at the corner of the screen while ignoring the actual environment.

Hell, in any Rockstar game I played, when you chase or tail someone following the dot on the map actually works a lot better than trying to keep them in sight from your own POV.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

The solution was usually the one object that had a unique model, too.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

I got Rain from PS+ this month, and the way it explains its mechanics puts me right off it from the very beginning. It's a simple basic mechanic - you're only visible in the omnipresent rain, and you can hide from monsters in dry places, under roofs and such. The game carefully breaks that up into tiny little facets and explains each in a super generic storytime tone. All it does is remind me of the many good games that "explain" their mechanics through letting you play them, and it tells me Rain isn't like those games.

Now that I think about it, it's kind of like Braid, which I liked a lot but had the same story tone going on. But then, you realized quickly Braid had more complex gameplay than "stand under roof."

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

When I first played Red Dead Redemption I was like "I don't know what the big deal is about the Mexico part, it's alright." Now I'm replaying it though and man. It really isn't. For all the reasons anyone's ever stated, pretty much, but plus, the developers really love that loving train they came up with, they love it so much that there are two or three missions that just revolve around protecting the train, and they all dump you in the rear end-end of nowhere.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

The only slightly weird thing about the GTA 4 train is that you can lose it during a chase.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

In Tales of Monkey Island there's a bit where you go underwater and you can let Guybrush sit there for as long as you want and he won't die. I mean, come on.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

All I know is I let him sit down there for way more than 10 minutes and nothing happened. Except a while later I solved the puzzle down there and right after I was done, a line of dialogue triggered where Guybrush said the ten minutes were up and went back to the surface on his own (even more of a cop out if you ask me).

They went out of their way to put in references and callbacks to the rest of the series and this is the one they skip? :colbert:

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

Shai-Hulud posted:

The thing dragging Wolfenstein down for me was the inconsistent effort on the german. Most of it was perfect, the posters on the wall were correct german, the german characters had german people voice them so they didn't sound like americans who never spoke german in their life.
The Saboteur is frequently made hilarious by this.

"Wenigstens kriegen wir guten TabaKCHCH."

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

Lufia II kind of went in that direction. It had a separate battle screen of the simplest kind and random encounters on the world map, but in dungeons you could see enemies walking around and avoid them. You even got some items to interact with them (like an arrow that'd stun them so you could sneak past) and there were a few puzzles that revolved around luring them onto switches and such.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

I dimly recall reading that Bioshock Infinite's script went through a lot of iterations and the final game features bits and pieces of each one. Which in a strange way almost works out with the whole dimension-hopping idea.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

Lunchmeat Larry posted:

you're not even so much doing as you're told as literally doing the only thing it's possible for you to do in the game
That's entirely the point though. It's not really a very deep comment on player agency, just taking a design feature of video games that's usually glossed over and involving it in the big plot twist in a pretty clever way.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

In some way, reusing the Steelport map really worked well, because if you played SR3 you already know it and can zip around in SR4 with wild abandon.

Similar complaint though: I always end up doing gang operations in SR3 from a hoverbike, and some of them are actually located in kinda neat setpieces that you'll miss when you're not on foot. Not on the level of the sex doll cave in SR2, but still unusual places.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

Screaming Idiot posted:

And a Disney song that they spoiled in the loving trailer!
That's a thing with Saints Row marketing in general. They pick the most exciting thing that happens in the game and put it front and center of the trailers. SR3 had the helicarrier that ends up appearing in a single mission and only if you made the "right" choice, SR4 did it with Johnny's return (to be fair, only after it was leaked, but boy there has got to be a better way to deal with that), Gat out of Hell did the song.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

I really wish Wonderful 101 could get its act together and not feature so many sequences that take away your awesome powers. The worst offenders are the long corridors where you run around solo beating up the puniest mooks while some story dialogue plays out (and obscures half the screen). It's really not that great a story. The various vehicle sections aren't so hot either, but at least usually there's something to do in them. Solo sections just run contrary to the game's idea. The levels are running slightly too long as it is, they could've done some pruning.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

smuh posted:

All right, Kiefer in MGSV: Dude never speaks. Big Boss is silent for what seems like 80% of the game, almost making him a silent protagonist.
Yes very much this. I've played the game for like 14 hours over the weekend, and I absolutely can't recall what his voice even sounds like. Occasionally he pipes up and I only recognize him as Snake by process of elimination because he doesn't sound like either of the other two.

Mind you I also tend to think of Kaz and Ocelot as "English Saints Row boss" and "awesome Saints Row boss" so take that for what it's worth.

Cleretic posted:

Kaz is doing that, he's arguably gone off the deep end before the game's even started
For real, I was listening to some briefing tapes driving round the base, and I was like, what the gently caress man, if I meet this guy I'm chucking him off the platform, A++ or not.

It's also much less of a story-focused game than I expected. Not that the gameplay isn't great, but I want to see more stuff like the trippy as hell prologue. I guess it would be more accurate to say that it's a slow burner. And also that I'm bad at it and sneak around bases for hours before making a move :v:

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

Ooh, I wonder if they have LOVELY.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

I'm at mission 10 and I kind of wish there was any plot, thrown in or not.

e: it is the best GTA game I've ever played, though, and that counts for something.

My Lovely Horse has a new favorite as of 07:30 on Sep 11, 2015

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

Leal posted:

MGS5: Really needs a quicksave system. Trying to get a mission out before I head out to work, but when its time to go I can't quicksave and have to redo everything I just did since the last checkpoint.
I learned a long time ago that You Do Not Play Just A Quick Round Of Metal Gear. Granted, in the old days it was because you never knew if a two hour cutscene was maybe just around the corner, but the same principle applies.

First boss battle took me two hours last night that I'd planned to do something else with. 2/3 of that was a failed first attempt.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

I was thinking of [Mission 11] Quiet, the first time you meet her in the ruins. The supply drop trick somehow never worked for me, she always got back on the move before it hit. But that fight you mentioned was a pain in the rear end too, mostly because I thought I had to escape but the exit was blocked, and then every time I retried they practically spawn camped me. Took me seven or eight tries just to get that weapon equipped.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

That's 100% what I expected would happen.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

The players who were most looking forward to Mario Maker, preordered and messed with the system clock to unlock everything early, are probably largely the ones who have been doing level editing for years through romhacking and are therefore incredibly familiar with the tools and physics, but they're also so far into it that Kaizo is their baseline. It's the same reason why Rock Band Network had a steady influx of super fast and highly technical prog metal/metalcore.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

The End did have a very similar feature. You could pick up his breathing with the directional microphone. In fact, that's my go-to way of finding him.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

I'm coming up on a part in MGSV where there seem to be a lot of missions clustered together that have hidden time limits. One has you search for allies before the bad guys can find them, and if you take too long they find and shoot them, another has you escorting some prisoners through hostile terrain and halfway through the guards back at base realize the prisoners are missing, so you've got alert hostiles behind and ahead of you now. Never liked that sort of thing in stealth games. I usually take my sweet time and approach things almost like a puzzle game. Didn't like the more action-oriented direction of MGS4 either, so I hope it doesn't go too far down that road.

(I take part of it back if it turns out you can prevent enemies from realizing the prisoners are gone, but I have a feeling it's scripted.)

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

The Moon Monster posted:

I'm sure this gerbil is way better off after I shot it with a tranq dart, stuffed it in my pocket and airlifted it to an offshore platform. Now it can live out the remaining 6 months of its lifespan in peace.
On the other hand, it's not lunch.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

Cleretic posted:

That mission is bafflingly poo poo, I have no idea why it's designed like it is. It can't even be laziness, since it actually uses special events and programming, the mission itself isn't thrown together haphazardly.
And you'd think the reward for it would at least be amazing, right? Nope your best buddy leaves forever.

I straight up deleted my save over that bullshit. And then I started the game over from the start right away and am back at mission 20 because it's just that good. Early missions are pretty amazing when you have limited equipment but 100 hours experience under your belt.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

RyokoTK posted:

Diablo 3 really covers the entire spectrum of female costumes actually, even within the same character. Low-level armor for pretty much all classes for both genders consists of "half a shirt and some underwear" but by the time you're halfway up the loot tree you're covered in ridiculous space marine armor and have shoulderpads bigger than your head.
I feel like I should say something about Xenoblade at this point.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

I just watched an LP that showed off the sneaking suit and maintenance disguise yesterday and I think if I hadn't been sick in bed I actually would have jumped up and yelled WHAT.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

That reminds me, in Peace Walker weapons development was set up so that your combat unit gave you a GMP pool you could use to develop weapons, and when development was finished the GMP went back in the pool. So it was mainly a restriction on how many items you could develop simultaneously, with an element of gating higher-level items behind a required GMP pool size. That seems like such a better idea than in MGSV where GMP are just straight up money.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

As far as I know they specifically do that sort of thing to sell guides. Like, in the old days when video game mags had cheat sections (when there were video game mags period :() and you'd see stuff like "for a level select press this 16 step nonrepeating button combo while plugged in port 2" and you'd go "who on earth stumbled across that"; most likely given to the mag by the publisher, either as a review aid or to generate some buzz.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

Tiggum posted:

Replaying Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell, and the upgrade system is really annoying me. Powers are fine since you can just fly around grabbing more soul clusters whenever you need to, but I'm constantly low on cash and it's used for both character upgrades and weapon upgrades. Last time I played I got to the end of the game, including all activities and targets, without having even half my weapons fully upgraded. It's frustrating to not be able to play with all the fun toys.
Oh yeah, it's pretty similar in Saints Row IV and you pretty much have to stick to one weapon from each category to have a chance of seeing its final form. Unless you do a lot of open world loving around, which admittedly is SRIV's whole thing, but still.

Actually in most games that have different weapon variations I'd prefer it if it was like the old days where you got the pistol, the shotgun, the assault rifle and so on. Looking at you, Phantom Pain.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

MrJacobs posted:

No the hype for how awesome it was made it available rather quickly into the plot. To be fair, it is the best gun ever so I can't blame them for caving in and giving it too us early. The mission where you "first" acquire the gun is still in the game untouched though, which makes it kind of jarring.
The mission itself is fairly late but you can get it early through activities, and I don't know why you wouldn't after all the trailers that put it front and center.

Saints Row is great but its marketing seems hell bent on showing off everything they've got in advance.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

That health bar is pretty drat :effort: but, y'know, it has a health bar instead of just having everything go blurry/monochrome/red at the edges the more your health goes down so you never really know how far you actually are from giving up the ghost until one single attack takes you from "pink tinge in one corner" all the way to "restart?" and you wonder what's the point, I'd consider that a net plus.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

Actually doesn't a skulltula show up next to an area's name on the map if you've found all of them in that area? That was pretty much the standard of tracking collectables back in the day, like Donkey Kong Country added a ! to a level's name if you found all the bonus rooms.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

Playing Shadow of Mordor I feel like I get the Batman-style combat with its hit streaks and two-button special attacks for the first time. My performance in the Arkham games was always decidedly on the mashy side.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

Friend of mine summed the whole FF7R situation up quite well:

quote:

Final Fantasy VII Remake will be like the Rocky Horror Picture Show attending its own midnight screening.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

Xoidanor posted:

FTFY.

But seriously, FFX showed it can be done and was done in the exact same pre-rendered+3D style as FF7. SE is like the only company that will openly flaunt how ridiculously incompetent they've become at making games. They're Bethesda without the charm.
FFX was pretty much just a graphics update, though. They left the gameplay, pacing and voice acting alone (for better or worse). FF7R already has ham-fisted exposition in the trailer, for things that everyone who wants a FF7 remake knows by heart, and I'm sure there will be plenty of additions and changes. There's no way they're not bringing Aeris back, for one.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

Oxxidation posted:

Ruby WEAPON in any other battle system would be interesting, because in the game proper you could literally win the fight by casting KotR once and going off to make lunch.
Final Fantasy VII Remake Episode 12: the Knights of the Round animation ($14.99)

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

Saints Row 3 had a troubled development cycle, let's put it that way. The way it ended up with the activities is that you get 2-3 of those activity missions from each of your new buddies, then one that's just a cutscene, and then they gently caress off until their storyarc starts.

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My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

If Neverwinter Nights is any indication, it's called that because there are so many of the things lying around, and they're all magic and legendary.

It's also the most generic medieval fantasy setting possible. I'm sick to death of the place. Setting a game there guarantees I'll never play it. I can only talk to so many haughty wizards, noble paladins and cunning rogues before I snap. Mask of the Betrayer immediately got a hundred times more interesting for being not set at the goddamn Sword Coast. Basically I'm Bugs Bunny in that Florida gif.

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