Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
If you have an email ending in @hotmail.com, @live.com or @outlook.com (or any other Microsoft-related domain), please consider changing it to another email provider; Microsoft decided to instantly block the server's IP, so emails can't be sent to these addresses.
If you use an @yahoo.com email or any related Yahoo services, they have blocked us also due to "user complaints"
-UE
If you use an @yahoo.com email or any related Yahoo services, they have blocked us also due to "user complaints"
-UE
Comments
Victini get!
I love how little fanfare there is for event legendary distribution in B&W.
Played some X3 as I wait for some challenge suggestions. The "upgraded" charge shot I find to be not that useful since it adds a delay to my charge shots and rarely hit what I want.
And took down Flame Mammoth, Storm Eagle and Armored Armadillo all with no upgrades, no Heart Tanks, no Sub Tanks and only with the X-Buster.
Next poster chooses who I fight next with these restrictions. I will try to save Chill Penguin for last though.
http://badassdigest.com/2011/11/29/film-crit-hulk-smash-hulk-vs-the-bat-shit-evolution-of-the-modern-warfare/
So, I know this is the kinda question many evade out of jadedness, but I think Hulk brings some really legit points here, although I'm not sure how much I agree.
I really liked the 'save a person's life' riddles you had to do, but the getting the trophies was such a pain in the ass I eventually gave up.
The only point I disagree with here is the implication that game mechanics themselves can't be considered artful, especially in terms of how they interact with a game's narrative. An easy example of an artful mechanic might be a psychology mechanic, where the events in the game have the capacity to influence what actions are available to a player, or how effective those are. Consider the possibility of a game where the player character suffers from chronic depression, and where they simply will not or cannot partake of certain actions until their state of mind is somewhat healed, even if it's just mildly and temporarily. It would be speaking about that debilitating conditions through the mechanics alone, so players experience its fallout via proxy.
With that in mind, I see no need for a distinction between "game" and "art" -- both can exist in harmony within the same work, it's just that some elements need to be taken out of cutscenes and implication, and instead transplanted into direct gameplay. After all, what better tool is there for exploring a concept than a piece of art that actually allows one to become close to it on a fundamental level? Games can do this and they can do it well, this I believe, but someone actually has to make it happen.
That was beside the point of the article, though. I agree entirely with gaming having to take responsibility for the implied (and often unintentional) messages within itself. We already have a culture where intellectualism and compassion is frowned upon within soldiers, for instance, and games like Modern Warfare, Gears of War and the like reinforce this as an ideal amongst impressionable youth. I'm all for keeping all the action and fun, but such games could be so much more powerful if they included a greater exploration of the concepts already held there. Contrast with, say, a medieval Irish warrior -- they were expected to not only master the sword, but a musical instrument and a Celto-Germanic board game, the name of which escapes me. So it was not good enough to be a good fighter; one had to be artful, thoughtful and deliberate as well.
Given that war games are so popular now, and modern warfare games have been so popular for over half a decade, it's perplexing that a game like this hasn't come along. Something that places a critical eye on the soldier as conceptualised in our modern context, and the pitfalls and the detriments that creates.
On the other hand, Hulk makes an excellent point in that the audience might be ahead of the medium here. I'm witnessing more and more discussion about this kind of thing all over the place, so it might just be that there's a legitimate market for more introspective titles. Most games are ultimately about violence, so there needs to be a mitigating factor that makes that violence part of the discussion, whatever the context may be.
Yeah, that was exactly what rustled my jimmies, I dunno.
But rereading it, I think what he means is that gameplay (To this day, that is) doesn't complement the themes of the games. For example, in Shadow of the Colossus (Which was basically Frankenstein with Big Rock Monsters and Magic) the simplistic gameplay doesn't really complement the themes of defiance, unhealthy (well, that's ambiguous, but whatever) love, righting someone's wrongs and so on. Because SOTC's not about the plot. It's about the artistic design and the feeling of slaying giant rock monsters. Or to put it less bluntly, while the gameplay's basically "Brains over brawn" the plot's "Playing god with a possible love interest/person you killed and regret to"
As such...well, I'm still not sure if I agree or disagree. I mean, I think gameplay bringing on those themes to the piece doesn't necessarily detract from it, but I also am aware that it causes a sense of disarray, to put it in a way, within the work.
Here's an example of a complement between mechanics and artistic goal that I came across while doing research for my Human Revolution review.
The game gives you ten experience for killing a human, but gives you thirty experience for knocking a human unconscious, and the experience bonus when you do that is called "merciful soul." This serves as a constant reminder to the player that these people are, well, people, and that while you may really, really need to get past them, killing them isn't morally the best way to do it.
@Lai: Boomer Kuwanger.
And Launch Octopus.
Dammit, why is Human Revolution having memory leaks? This didn't happen the first time I installed it, and it's making getting through the game really annoying.
Aaand Boomer Kuwanger is dead! On my last life with a minimal amount of health too.
And defeated Launch Octopus with minimal health too!
5 down, 3 to go.
Parasite Eve is a great game, but Square really overdid the FMVs. I mean, seriously, 6 hours of gameplay over 2 discs?
I strongly suggest ignoring all side-missions.
I hear that one is good but really repetitive, and 2 is where the series really hits its stride. I've played 2 a little, but I never got very far.
Yeah, I'd agree with that.
Can't really comment on Brotherhood, since its tutorial drags on for several hours without actually introducing much you don't already know, so I never got through it.
Question! Is Deus Ex's plot about life and people and how so?
Well...not the original, but Human Revolution's is about class distinctions and whether it's right for those who can get augmented to leave the rest of humanity in the dust, so I'd say it fits the theme.
Spark Mandrill's down. Still have no Sub Tanks, Heart Tanks nor upgrades.
Just have Sting Chameleon and Chill Penguin left.
CHAMELEON
Next challenge: no damage, buster only, no sub tanks, no heart tanks, no upgrades, fox only, final destination.
I am not patient enough to try a no-damage run.
Besides, Fox is only unlocked AFTER you no-damage the entire game by completing those requirements, Glenn.
YEEEEAAAAH! Chameleon is no more!
But I cannot rest! For I now must fight the strongest of Mavericks, Chill Penguin!
I don't think I can do it, guys!
Is there a way to skip the dash upgrade?
I just won't dash during the Chill Penguin fight.
And therefore screw myself over because I need all the help I can get against the MIGHTY CHILL PENGUIN! HE IS FAR TOO POWERFUL!
EDIT: HAI GAIZ YOU'LL NEVER BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED, I DEFEATED THE MIGHTY CHILL PENGUIN!
Okay, that's enough of that. Feel satisfying to do that.
Brain: You have to fight Sting Chameleon and Launch Octopus again in the Boss Rush.
Fuck.
So, Tales of Symphonia.
I'm about twenty hours in and the gameplay is a hoot and the characters are pretty good, ignoring the voice acting, but the general plot and story falls into the general anime trap of dropping graceless anvils everywhere. There's some good ones -- one of the characters remarks "Knowing it's not the truth, but still having that feeling, that's what racism's about" or similar, which I thought was actually an aspect of it not often traveled -- but there's a large helping of traditional anime cheese which can only be endearing for so long before it becomes grating. Perhaps this was alleviated somewhat in Phantasia because of the abstraction that comes with a lack of voice acting, wherein one's mind can wander to the most appropriate tone and execution of a line, in addition to placing their own voices on the characters. Anvil-heavy anime writing with mediocre US voice acting can be tiresome.
The plot is also getting a bit topsy-turvy. This is a Tales trademark, with the first game being a time-travel adventure and all, but this one has two worlds which are shadows of one-another which share organisations and shadow leaders and stuff and it gets a bit much to focus on. There's also a general issue with conveyance; a plot point might tell you to go somewhere with general directions and it'll be recorded in the menu for you, but sometimes I end up getting lost anyway.
All that being said, the core gameplay is some of the best I've experienced from a traditional JRPG series, as expected. The real failing of this game isn't really in the game itself, but the peripheral stuff. It needed better voice acting and a script revision or two in order to convey things more clearly and convincingly. A more varied set of accents would help, too -- for instance, the unmistakably Asian ninja sounds as American as the white people in the cast, although she's got some of the better voice acting from an objective point of view. She's also from a place that's a mashup of the Celtic West and Japan, so some kind of accent alteration would have been nice, though.
If you haven't gathered yet, writing about this game is kind of difficult because it's great underneath the hood and technically impressive for 2003 standards, but it has a fair few failings common to JRPGs and anime when it comes to the plot and narrative and all that stuff. It's a shame, because it plays with some big ideas like racism, slavery, sacrifice and -- of course -- the meaning of friendship. Most games, to this day, refuse to even approach any of that with a lengthy, barbed stick, so I think Symphonia deserves some appreciation for tackling those things in the first place. It doesn't tackle them ungraciously from a social point of view, but it's a bit hamfisted narratively, and it seems to me that there would have been more natural ways to do it. A lot of these themes are rather adult, too, which clashes a bit with the childlike aesthetics and underwhelming dialogue.
Overall, it's so far been a great as a gameplay experience and acceptable as a swords-and-sorcery-and-magitek anime experience. Some characters are legitimately a joy to experience, such as the enigmatic swordsman Kratos (although I would say that, wouldn't I?) and, even as annoying as Colette can be, she has some endearing moments. Lloyd, the main character, is a pretty standard shonen protagonist. He doesn't fail the archetype, but nor does he help advance it. What this game really thrives on is the group dynamic, though. While the internal conflict of the party seldom has gameplay ramifications, it's interesting to watch the more adult, experienced characters painfully bring the younger ones back into reality.
If the plot was more well-considered and the characters were portrayed better in a technical sense (voice acting and, at times, dialogue), I'd be pretty happy to call this one of the best RPGs I've ever played. And in a gameplay sense, it actually is. Given that we now have games like The Witcher 2, however, which handle heavy concepts with grace and gravitas, narrative has simply moved too far for me to consider this a particularly great story experience. If you end up liking some of the characters, the story is worthwhile to see how said characters unfold, but otherwise you'll get the same narrative experience out of a swords-and-sorcery anime, although perhaps said anime wouldn't approach the same grave themes.