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bawk
Mar 31, 2013

GIANT OUIJA BOARD posted:

Bonnie the rabbit in Five Nights At Freddy's. I get that the fact that Bonnie and Chica move randomly adds to the challenge and the creepiness, but I wish they actually had to follow along paths instead of just teleporting across the building. Since Chica isn't as aggressive, it's not as much of a problem with her, but there's been multiple occasions when Bonnie has teleported from the far side of the building into the security office, and it's pretty frustrating.

That's actually Bonnie's schtick, when that happens it means you weren't keeping an eye on Bonnie close enough and now Bonnie teleports to one of their assigned rooms. If that happens and the cameras go black, you're supposed to tab out and check the lights in that door.

Of course, that means Freddie can't be watched, so you have to play Bonnie by ear while Freddie is your main concern. Night five sucks poo poo.

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bawk
Mar 31, 2013

The flight controls in Lego: Marvel loving suck

IronMan flies in three speeds: No forward momentum, too-slow-to-finish-timed-races, and impossible-to-control.

So naturally there are little flight courses scattered all over the city that he needs to finish.

Is there any other character that flies better than him? It's such a pain in the rear end.

bawk
Mar 31, 2013

John Murdoch posted:

Thankfully most of the races in general are just for gold bricks, and the only thing they get you after a certain point is credit towards 100% completion.

From what I could tell as I struggled through the few you do need to do to unlock actual stuff, there is a kind of sense to the flight controls, but when combined with the unresponsive camera it turns into a complete clusterfuck. One or the other could've made it salvageable, maybe, but gently caress both at once.

I played through it on M+KB. I assume a controller doesn't really fix the problem. Though it might've made the goddamn go-kart race not take 30 tries...

Nope, go karts handle like poo poo. I've got a standard 360 controller plugged in and I can't beat any races. They wouldn't e so bad if the races themselves weren't so long. Why does the flight one next to the helicarrier take so loving long to finish? I made it through what I thought was 90% of it before realizing that there was double that length to go. I still didn't reach the end. I don't even know if it was the end.

Go karts still handle like poo poo, too. But at least that is relatively nicer.

bawk
Mar 31, 2013

Borderlands guns should just have a max level cap of their own. Whites never level up, greens get five levels, blues get ten, purples and legendaries get fifteen. That way you can find a gun that you like, keep using it, and it earns experience to scale with you until it maxed out. That way you can use a sniper rifle you found at Level 5, but also have room for changing to different ones based on higher max level. A blue level 15 would have better growth than a purple level five

bawk
Mar 31, 2013

If you didn't respond to every sleight against your character by stuffing the person responsible into a stolen car, then launching it off a pier, then I just don't think you're cut out for the Triad life, buddy.

bawk
Mar 31, 2013

Accordion Man posted:

MGS: Peace Walker has by far the most boring and tedious boss fights in the series and the fact that I have to grind side-missions to get anything good is just killing my interest fast. I honestly don't get the praise, to me its by far the weakest in the mainline series and I though 4 was a genuinely good game when you got to play it.

It has some loving crazy sidemissions that are absolutely dripping with character, but it doesn't really make up for the tedious boss fights.

Now, four player co-op with the stupidly overpowered weapons. That makes up for the boss fights. :getin:

bawk
Mar 31, 2013

Alteisen posted:

Just finished Demon Souls.

It honestly makes me appreciate Souls 1 and 2 a lot more despite the flaws in those games, Demons has a great atmosphere to it but way to much bullshit under the hood.

Tons of upgrade materials, seems to be a myriad of upgrade materials per world.
Terrible bosses, can't think of any memorable ones outside of false king.
Weight limit to how much I can carry.
Leveling up gets WAY out of control soul cost wise around level 50.
Weird clipping issues, kept slipping off terrain even if I was in the middle of it, must have stepped on a magic pixel.
Obnoxious enemies forcing me to just pelt with them arrows till they died or hosed off.
Valley of Defilement is horrible and I hated every minute of it.
Male/Female only armor
World Tendency(what is this garbage anyway)
Stun locking

Glad I played it to completion but I doubt I'll popping this one in again anytime soon.

The bosses are some of the best of the series. The only area with lovely bosses is Valley of Defilement, because it's A: Disease Golem, B: Garbage Golem: C: Sonny and Cher in the Swamp of Aborted Fetuses.

All the bosses were really varied and interesting. Boletaria had Phalanx, which was a snoozefest, but it also had Tower Knight and the Penetrator, both extremely cool fights against giant enemies that can wreck your poo poo pretty handily. Stonefang had the giant spider and the Flamelurker, which were both really fun to play. Latria has the greatest "gently caress You" bosses (immortal gimmick boss, MANEATERS, and Old Monk can actually be an invader instead), while Shrine of Storms has Adjudicator (fantastic boss), the blind soldier (Fun when you first play through and freak out), and then you kill the king of sky manta rays with a sword that shoots goddamned sonic booms.

The only game with weak bosses was Dark Souls II, so much of them were retreads of ones already retread by Dark Souls itself, since the boss design was carried over from Demon's in order to fuel Dark Souls's status as a spiritual successor.

bawk
Mar 31, 2013

Some bosses didn't even get proper introductions. Like Smelter Demon? Literally in a hallway leading into the second half of a large room, he doesn't get a boss arena, he gets a vestibule. It's like bumping into Satan for a boss fight at the breakfast nook in a holiday inn

bawk
Mar 31, 2013

kazil posted:

The fight is supposed to be cramped. I don't think Dark Souls fans even know what they want from Dark Souls bosses any more.

You can have a cramped fight without a terrible, awful setup. There's even one in that very same game that pulls it off! (The one at the end of no man's wharf)

The boss just has no pacing. You're expecting a boss, but there's no tension built for Smelter Demon since his boss room is a surprise, but at the same time no "gently caress gently caress gently caress" moment with him. His gimmick is being extremely dangerous halfway through the fight, not from the get go. It would have been way better if he just erupted from the ceiling in Capra-Demon style to overhand slam you while his health bar is just appearing, but I had a good deal of time to prepare.

In fact, that very same room had a better boss encounter. If you walk back through it again, an earlier boss reappears as a regular enemy and can still completely kick your rear end. It swoops in unannounced, hits like a truck, and plays off your previous fear of the boss, since you lost likely killed him earlier with the cheap environment kill, not through melee combat.

Dark Souls II has really neat areas with fantastic design and art direction, but really lovely bosses in the middle third of the game. I still haven't waded through the last third, but if it's as bad as the rat bosses/iron keep bosses, I'm going to be pretty disappointed

bawk
Mar 31, 2013

kazil posted:

Complaining that Smelter Demon is bad and saying Flexile Demon is good :psyduck:

Calling an intentional throwback to DS1 a boring color palette swap :psyduck:

Dark Souls 2 has it's share of problems but you guys are insane. Bad bosses are poo poo like Old Iron King and Royal Rat Authority.

They have some really neat boss designs and ideas, but Smelter Demon/Old Dragonslayer just miss the mark. If Old Dragonslayer was actually difficult, it would be an awesome fight that comes out of nowhere, but the thing that made BigO such a scary fight was the wear down from fighting them both at once, then having to fight a super charged Ornstein. This is just supercharged Ornstein, which isn't a hard fight.

And Flexile Demon itself wasn't a mechanically good boss :v: the buildup, though, actually fits.

Same with Capra Demon, it's a boss door that you may not be expecting (the area leading up to him is much shorter than previous areas) and there is no delay in starting the fight, unlike the last two fights (gargoyles and Taurus for most people)

That's my main problem with DSII, it's a lot of ideas that just aren't nearly polished enough. They get 75% of the way there on most areas and bosses, then drop the ball on execution. I can honestly say the only fights I actually enjoyed so far were in Lost Bastille/Bellfry Luna/The place after Lost Bastille

bawk
Mar 31, 2013

The Moon Monster posted:

I always thought Super Ornstein was the hardest part of O&S :shrug:

He is, but a lot of Dark Souls bosses are extremely well balanced and designed in ways that put thought into how the bosses can be used to teach the player, and escalate the challenge throughout the game.

For instance, Ornstein and Smough are a step up from the Gargoyles, who are the first multiple-boss fight in the game. That boss eases you into the concept of a two-enemy fight, because you have two pretty similarly patterned Gargoyles that will attack you, while also staggering their entrance--you get time to learn the first Gargoyle's patterns, and then the second one appears to shake things up. The strategy is to beat down the first one as quick as you can, before the second one shows up. If you do this quick enough, it makes the rest of the fight fairly easy. Otherwise, players might end up balancing strikes between two Gargoyles, wasting time (to a degree, since the other will still die faster if you deal some damage to it) while also risking taking damage. Then, once you kill one, you wrap up what's left of the other's healthbar.

O&S punish you for not taking the lesson from the Gargoyle: Focus down only one of the two enemies. This time around, both of them come right out the gate, and you immediately realize that you have to learn two simultaneous patterns while focusing down one of the two. If you don't focus your attacks on just one, as quickly as possible, you will get your rear end handed to you once the second phase begins, because the other gets all their health back. It becomes a war of attrition, because even the slightest fuckups against the two of them are punished by Ornstein's constant attacks slowly whittling you down, or an outright death stroke by Smough's hammer. And, if you kill the slower, easier-to-pummel enemy, you get a stronger version of the super-fast hard-hitting rear end in a top hat that probably opened the fight by jabbing his spear square into your skull.

The cool part is that isn't even the last fight--the next one is Four Kings, where you now have to take this knowledge, again, to kill those guys. Because now you know that you have to rush down single targets in these fights, otherwise you get overwhelmed. You have to be mindful of magic attacks (like Ornstein's spear) because they can hit you even while you're keeping the other enemies at a distance. Instead of just being "fairly difficult" if you don't kill the single targets quickly enough, it's a death sentence. Once all Four Kings come out, you're definitely screwed, no question about it. At that point it's just a fight against how quickly your health bar will deplete.

Dark Souls 1 was really loving good at teaching the player, and putting considerable thought into boss presentation and design. Capra Demon even teaches a lesson, to always go through fog gates on your guard--which pays off when Ornstein super slides at your face. They even have a reminder/fake out of this with the Iron Golem, since he almost always swings that sonic boom attack at you when you first walk in, but there's a convenient pile of rubble to block it.

Luisfe posted:

Ornstein being relatively weak and honestly a very easy boss is more or less the point.

Being "the point" doesn't make it any better, it just means they deliberately designed a lovely boss for no reason other than a pointless fanservice callback that you tear through like wet paper. I killed Ornstein before I even killed the Last Giant, and the Last Giant gave me way more trouble.

It's not like they need to make Ornstein an easy boss--his whole purpose in DSII is to block off the Blue Sentinels covenant. Not to summon help if you're invaded--to be the guy that gets summoned to prevent invasions. Absolutely make that boss harder, it would be hilarious and give players a challenge for them to either plow through if they're experienced, or come back to later (since it's relatively close to a bonfire).

God dammit, even whining about DSII makes me want to go back and play more of it :v:

bawk
Mar 31, 2013

kazil posted:

All bosses in DS2 should have been Ornstein and Smough

It's seriously insane how well-designed the entirety of Anor Londo is. You can tell that area got a lot of polish over time. It demands you learn to pull aggro on enemies, it punishes you for rushing headlong into fights with multiple enemies. Everything up to that point has been manageable--thieves, hollows, trees, even the snake-men. But you seriously cannot juggle multiple gargoyles, sentinels, or silver knights.

Plus, you can spend all day parrying the silver knights. :allears:

bawk
Mar 31, 2013

kazil posted:

Anyone who defends Capra Demon as anything but a piece of poo poo fight is crazy.

Nah, Capra is a well-designed fight. It's a difficulty spike that's forcing you to think calmly, prioritize danger, and either learn to roll or learn to prepare ahead of time with spells, miracles, firebombs, what have you. By that point in the game, you've picked up enough firebombs (and probably not used them) that I'm pretty sure you can almost outright kill the Capra Demon with just those. Otherwise, alluring skulls work on him.

Asylum Demon/Stray Demon/Firewhatever Demon are all inexcusably bad, as is the rest of that area. Now that I think about it, I never realized that Old Iron King is just Ceaseless Discharge II--I never fought Ceaseless in a straight up fight, I always cheesed it :v:

bawk
Mar 31, 2013

kazil posted:

I don't want to make this personal but you have the worst opinions ever.

Ask me about how the silver knight archers were a good thing :twisted:

e: Speaking of poo poo that brings games down, I've been playing a fair bit of Contraption Maker on Steam, and the poo poo bringing it down is how lackluster it is compared to The Incredible Toon Machine. Sure, the incredible toon machine had some horrible, eye-gouging graphics choices, but everything animated like a saturday morning cartoon, it had so much character.

Contraption maker just...looks so bland. It looks more like the original The Incredible Machine, so launching a rocket into space using a candle that gets rolled on a conveyor belt by a cat chasing after a mouse manages to look boring.

bawk has a new favorite as of 05:59 on Nov 4, 2014

bawk
Mar 31, 2013

Old Iron King really is terrible. It's Ceaseless Discharge, a really boring and bad boss from the first game, but now there is an easy instant death pit you can fall in.

I'm so glad there wasn't a Bed of Chaos equivalent in this game.

bawk
Mar 31, 2013

The old vectors suck poo poo and were one of the worst parts of the old game, the new style is way better in every way. Just be glad they didn't go with the 8 bit idea that was floated around

bawk
Mar 31, 2013

Alteisen posted:

Then they need to take a 2nd look at the items then, the game has an absurd number of bad items that bloat the pool and made the game needlessly difficult.

Definitely. There's all of the "Mom's ____" items which only increase range, which is a complete non-stat unless you're running around with Number One or other range-lowering item.

Meanwhile, there's all sorts of items which increase two separate, useful stats. The Mom items just seem really boring compared to the other options available in the game. I mean, they buffed some other items (Tammy's Head) which were useless, why do nothing with some of the most useless items in the game?

bawk
Mar 31, 2013

Phthisis posted:

Toss me into the camp of people who liked Fallout 3 but didn't like New Vegas.

One reason I liked FO3 much more than NV is that the Mojave was pretty much not at all post-apocalyptic. I used to live in New Mexico and I very often felt like it was no different from driving around the real desert, except you couldn't really talk to anyone or go into any buildings. I had no desire to explore anything when it was basically just a shittier version of a real place.

Another reason I wasn't a big fan of New Vegas is that I just didn't give a poo poo about anyone. As flawed as FO3's story was, at least I was The Hero who was supposed to go on this big adventure to save the world or whatever. The main revenge quest in NV didn't do much for me, because I knew nothing about this guy I was supposed to be chasing, who no longer had any impact on anything, so it felt like there was no point. In addition, I really didn't care about the factions either. People seem to (sometimes) praise the moral ambiguity of who takes over the city, but that's also what drove me to not care. If there was a clear good and bad, then I would actually care to make sure the good beat the bad. Caesar's legion was a little better about that. I never beat the game, but before giving up, I was focusing on loving them up, since they seemed worthy of that.

The original main antagonist shoots you in the head over a platinum chip that was purposefully sent out for delivery in a confusing way to mask it's location.

If you don't find that to be an engaging starting point for a story, you must really hate stories that don't spoon feed you an antagonist and protagonist like a sub-YA novel. Even YA authors have stepped up to include antiheros, revenge plots, and non-altruistic motives to fuel stories for over a decade

bawk
Mar 31, 2013

Screaming Idiot posted:

Why would I when I could play good games instead? :smug:

Pictured: poor taste in JRPGs

BOI had the best fishing games, which is the opposite of dragging something down. What they did have was annoyingly obtuse ability trainers. BOI III was the worst for this, it took too much drat effort to get the best abilities for Ryu. :mad:

bawk
Mar 31, 2013

Raxivace posted:

This clock bullshit in Fez is really loving dumb.

I mean god drat, who the gently caress thought waiting around for something to just appear was a fun challenge.

Dude, date and time settings.

bawk
Mar 31, 2013

Tiggum posted:

I've never understood why people want this. What's the actual advantage?

It doesn't require Windows to change resolution settings, it just upscales the designated resolution to display on your monitors. So alt-tabbing out of the program doesn't require a major resolution change, it just swaps to the programs loaded in the background at their native resolution

bawk
Mar 31, 2013

Byzantine posted:

Unless I've got a guide open in another window for the game, I don't alt-tab (hell, I've printed out stuff so I wouldn't have to). Granted, I don't play any games with longass loading screens or unskippable credits, but that so many people alt-tab is weird. If the game's too boring to focus on, why play it? :confused:

The game itself isn't boring, there's just sometimes unavoidable downtime. Loading screens, matchmaking waits, unskippable scenes you've already watched, or occasionally an important notification you need to check. Having the game take minute(s) to alt-tab out and come back in is a pain in the rear end.

bawk
Mar 31, 2013

Oxxidation posted:

hold on, i said something about this once i think

I miss when you would just calmly respond with the link describing the fallacy of

Tiggum posted:

I don't understand why...

Every time he posted it.

But, Tiggum. The reason people want controller support on every PC game is that they are already used to using the controller for their video games, they have grown accustomed to the buttons and sticks instead of keys and mice, so they would rather play the game in a way that is already comfortable than relearn the control schemes or readjust to different muscle memory when USB controllers exist for the 360/Xbone/PS3/PS4, let alone the ones you can get for just PCs. I wouldn't touch a single GTA game with KB+M controls, despite extensively playing FPS games with KB+M, because I'm used to using controllers for my third person explodey car game.

On the flip side for thread content, I'm really sick of Binding of Isaac breaking every update. Half the reason I was excited for BOI:Rebirth was the new game engine, which was supposed to be more stable. It seems with every new patch, though, there's still the "fixed old problems, caused seven new ones" issue with the original game. Like, accidentally breaking Secret Rooms (rooms you need to bomb into, which are guessable based on a simple pattern) so that you can't bomb out of them if there's an adjacent room that is considered "Special". So you could teleport into that room by accident, and be incapable of leaving if the two adjacent rooms are an item room and a shop.

There's been other issues that either haven't been fixed, or just haven't been noticed, and the more they fix the more other things break. I understand it's a hard game to reliably playtest all situations with every bug patch, due to literally hundreds of unique items interacting with each other, but the basics of your room generation really should not be so hosed with even light playtesting.

bawk
Mar 31, 2013

Cleretic posted:

Because I've finally got a computer that can run it with both a decent framerate and graphics settings, I've been playing Farcry 3: Blood Dragon, which is a pretty decently fun game. I'm mostly there for the setting and writing; the gameplay's decent, and I can definitely have fun, but it's really not my kind of game.

The thing dragging the game down for me is the fact the player character is just way too swear-y in his dialog. It's clear that they wanted to make a macho 80s action hero, the sort of character that'd be played by Stallone or Schwarzenegger, and he's got a lot of those gruff action-movie one-liners that work really well for that... but then he pulls a 'goddamn cock-sucking motherfucker' out of nowhere for no good reason, and I feel like it actually hurts the rest of the game. The entire rest of the setting is this gloriously 80s cyberpunk cheese, with all the other characters playing it exactly as straight as they should be, but we're stuck playing this lazy, half-hearted attempt at badass that ruins the notes more often than he hits them.

I completely agree, the game has a tendency to be entirely self-aware and parody action movie poo poo without committing to it. Kinda like the tutorial jokes while being in a lovely tutorial. Having a swear-happy parody of an action hero falls flat when they can't even make the swear-happiness good or funny, just grating. If you're making a game about machismo-in-excess as a punchline, you gotta commit or find a better way to turn the tables on cliches like that. It just existing isn't parody, it has to be grossly overdone or outright mocked, otherwise it's just another bit of lazy genre-reference without payoff

bawk
Mar 31, 2013

GOTTA STAY FAI posted:

Hey if we're doing really obvious trolling that people will inevitably fall for I've got one:

Kingdom Hearts is a lovely franchise for literal infants

"DONALD DUCK SCORED A CRITICAL HIT ON SEPIROTH FOR 9999 DAMAGE!" Yeah that's a game adults play

Try not to step on any legos when you run upstairs from the basement when mom says your hot pockets are done

I take this stance unironically

bawk
Mar 31, 2013

How is the option of preventing a crazy evil roman-knock-off empire not important at all in NV? Its not an Enclave or Super Mutant Army but the NCR is pretty explicitly the last thing in the way of Caesar controlling the Hoover Dam and taking over a sizable portion of Nevada before continuing its rapid expansion westward. If you let them win, or join them, they basically reach a point of such prosperity that they're all but guaranteed to take over a huge portion of North America.

I mean, they live in a lovely slum-camp across the river from a huge military installation, are only armed with machetes, throwing spears, and janky guns, and they can still take down a heavily-armed governing force and turn its citizens into a slave army. Given the items available in the Mojave, like a death laser from space and other assorted super weapons from the Brotherhood, they would probably glass California within the decade

bawk
Mar 31, 2013

Bloodborne's gameplay is really good and the setting is phenomenal but the plot really, really sucks. Your goal is to find "paleblood" and end the nightmare. The reality is you dive headfirst into a Nightmare, with no real indication that this is where you want to ultimately go, find out that "paleblood" means the Moon, and the only way to end the nightmare is killing a heretofore unmentioned Great One which is acting as a wet nurse for a baby

All the other games have a logical, motivating goal. Demon's Souls, complete all 5 areas and kill the Old One to lift the fog. Dark Souls, collect the Lord Souls and kill Gwyn. Dark Souls II, take control of the Throne of Want to break the undead curse. In Bloodborne you start with a goal that makes sense, but there's nothing signifying the "end area" at all, you just kill a pretty lackluster "final boss" and see "Nightmare Slaughtered", then you warp back to Hunter's Dream and go stand by a tree to end it. This could be sorta intentional since there's more to seek out and get a better ending, but the abruptness of the final area and lame final boss was pisspoor.

bawk
Mar 31, 2013

I take it all back. I didnt know there were two other final bosses if you get the bonus stuff :stare:

bawk
Mar 31, 2013

It's less the story and more the weird ramp-up to "final boss" without any real rhyme or reason. Every other game has a climactic end fight, even if it is easy. This just looked like a regular boss, and if you pick the lame ending choice, the pacing is just all out of whack.

But the real final boss is climactic as gently caress and totally owns

bawk
Mar 31, 2013

BB's true ending is way better than any other souls game, but the Nightmare feels like a side area 95% of the time you play it. Wet Nurse doesn't hold a candle to parrying black knights on the way to Gwyn, and if it weren't for the true ending then Bloodborne is easily the weakest in plot pacing and motivation. The actual ending cutscenes, with credits roll and etc, is standard Souls affair. My beef is that the game basically just confuses and misleads you about your main objective, then tosses it aside because it doesnt actually matter, which cuts the motivation to play in half. Also, it doesn't let on that you're fighting through the final area to reach your last objective, then presents a boss (that could be swapped with literally any other one) as your potential final boss.

It just annoys me, they completely fumble the potential for an amazing ramp-up to a cosmic horror climax. It'd be like stumbling into the Painted World in DS1, killing the boss there, jumping off the bridge, and appearing at the Kiln to either light it or leave. Just comes out of left field and doesn't jive at all with how the rest of the game has been foreshadowing and building up a final encounter in the barren wasteland of the kiln. I was expecting a real Great One fight in a hosed up cosmic plane like Zom or the brain of Mensis, not a generic courtyard with a monster that reminds me of Cleric Beast or Blood-Letting Beast, y'know?

Again, all that being valid for just the "bad" ending. The actual final boss is exactly what I mean by a well-hinted-toward and awe-inspiring final boss, in both setting and gameplay mechanics. :allears: I just wish they did the same with the Nightmare and its boss

bawk
Mar 31, 2013

"Emergent gameplay" is literally why GTA exists still and is probably why the sandbox-game open-world genre even exists to the degree that it does.

bawk
Mar 31, 2013

FactsAreUseless posted:

I thought GTA was about driving cars and stuff.

And it was only successful because the cops-running-your-rear end-down aspect was a glitch, entirely unrelated to the game's original purpose, and everybody loved it so much it stayed in.

"Emergent gameplay" is pretty much one of the most important aspects of video games because of things like that.

bawk
Mar 31, 2013

Drunk Nerds posted:

Oh, okay, so is "emergent gameplay" like when you take the baby in Fallout 3 out into the wasteland?

Because that is so my jam.

Yes. It's gameplay that wasn't originally designed, and occurs either due to glitches or player creativity. SL1 dark souls runs, taking turns with friends to last longer while at a six star wanted level in GTA, necromancer no-attacking-enemies-only-using-summoned-minions runs in Diablo II, speedrunning games, etc.

bawk
Mar 31, 2013

DStecks posted:

I'd say the problem is that we've got two distinct things we're using the same term for, and people are arguing because we can't keep straight which meaning of emergent gameplay we mean.

1) The traditionalist definition, many examples of which have been provided, meaning "dickery that the game devs genuinely did not intend, often exploiting bugs or lapses in coding".

2) The "modern" definition, meaning all non-directed play.

Probably the reason why these two completely different things have the same name is that the second one grew from the first; the dickery in early GTA was textbook emergent gameplay, one that the game changed itself to focus on. So modern open-world games get called "emergent" even though, for example, the Nemesis system of Mordor is about as undirected as a choose-your-own-adventure book. A very granular one, for sure, but still definitely directed play. I guess the reason why we feel the need to think of this as undirected play is that, for the past decade or so, the norm has been highly directed play, especially in the realm of console games.

And I will agree that trying to force emergent gameplay is a thing that drags Skyrim down. Radiant quests pushing you toward unexplored dungeons just to fetch an unimportant item is lazy, randomly-generated trash. Shadow of Mordor implements a bit of randomness on its own with some of its orcs, but it's all still very much an intended part of the story and not "fun" made up by the player.

That being said, SoM's lategame is legitimately great for this, because once you have a ton of powers it is extremely fun to just challenge yourself by doing things like killing an entire stronghold of orcs, or seeing how many you can kill by luring Graugs around and not attacking a single orc yourself.

It seems weird thinking about all the little things like that, though, and realizing how much of it has gone on to become expected actions of the player via achievements. Like some combat challenges in the Arkham ______ games, where stuff like "knock out x guys using only y move" or "glide for z feet without touching the ground" aren't just emergent aspects of gameplay that the player thought up, but rather mandatory goals to access some game content.

bawk
Mar 31, 2013

Syndicate is a decent shootmans with a dumb plot that you will either be all "meh" about or eat up like the piece of poo poo you are, basically

bawk
Mar 31, 2013

Fingerless Gloves posted:

If you play Runescape I'll give you some stuff, just wear your best so I can see what to upgrade and meet me in the wildy

Can you trim my armor, too???

bawk
Mar 31, 2013

No Such Thing posted:

using lift and a shotgun with explosive rounds to send geth into orbit or launching them clean through game geometry almost singlehandedly makes me1 better than the other two.

Did you not play Vanguard? Because this reads like you didn't play Vanguard.

bawk
Mar 31, 2013

Dark Souls II has the best durability system. Everything has fairly low durability, it automatically repairs at bonfires, you pay souls to fix items at a blacksmith otherwise, and weapons have a little bar below their icon on the HUD showing how much durability is left.

Your items are never destroyed, just rendered temporarily useless, and it forces you to diversify your weapons in order to survive extended exploration trips.

bawk
Mar 31, 2013

That's doubly dumb considering Origins featured the option of outright killing a party member and replacing them with an identical-in-function antagonist, as well as opportunity for other characters to outright attack you for blaspheming their core beliefs

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bawk
Mar 31, 2013

Byzantine posted:

So is there any reason at all to play Dragon Age past the first game+its expansions? The first one was pretty fun as a classic fantasy romp that let you be a surprisingly assholish savior.

DA:2 has half a cast of awful characters, a fairly neat storytelling method, pretty lackluster party cosmetics, and the worst most god-awful loving terrible horrible gameplay of any RPG to date. The skills are dull, the enemies are all boring, the same maps get reused over and over again, and there's almost always an inexplicable second or third wave of enemies that just rise up out of the ground, making combat always last two or three times longer than it should.

It's a B- in storytelling and an F in being fun, it averages out overall to a D experience. Skip it. DA:I is solid enough, you'll enjoy it

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