My opinions (to, as always, make it clear that I don't really agree with Scott here).
1. The basic non-story gameplay looks pretty shit.
2. The "Choose Your Own Adventure" decide who I save/kiss/whatever gameplay looks fun.
3. Only a small percentage of the fans of Mass Effect appear to give one shit about item #1, caring only about #2.
4. Mass Effect proves there is a market for what amounts to a modern, choice-driven dating/story simulator. Think visual novels or adventure games in Japan. They should have gone full on with just that aspect, rather than cramming a mediocre game into what amounts to a story tweaker.
Fair comment. Having played all three, and finished the later two, I'd say that the gameplay itself isn't bad, it's a competent 3rd person shooter, just that it's bland and a bit generic(I personally enjoy the gameplay, but I recognize that's not a mark of anything other than my personal enjoyment of the gameplay in that particular game).
See, this is kinda why I'm actually kinda supportive of what they've done - You have an option, at the very, very start, where you can choose three options - You can play shooter-style, and all the dialog and other story stuff is rolled out like cutscenes, you can play it VN style, with the combat difficulty being turned way down, and turned to cutscenes as much as possible, but you play all the dialog options and make your choices as you go along. And they have the normal game mode, which is essentially Combat and Dialog both there to be played in full. A lot of people cracked up about it, but really, I'm all for it. It's an attempt to cater the game to more people, without changing the core game itself, and it doesn't get in the way if you want to play the game normally, you just click the "Normal" box at the start, and never worry about it again.
I don't see how Uncharted is a failure in the gaming parts? The combat is super good and flows a lot better than like every other cover based shooter. Mass Effect's actual combat wasn't nearly as good, but I heard it got more action-y in 2 and 3 (never played the sequels), so maybe I'd enjoy them more.
There is enough text in this thread to make my head spin, but I'll just say that back in the day, I stood by my N64 and Gamecube because I didn't want to sit around watching cutscenes all day. I'm more interested in the game. Some people are more interested in an interactive story. There's a market for both, so let's all live happily forever after.
All I believe is that if we are going to label games under genres then they should have their own that contains games that do nothing more than tell a story.
And that's exactly the point I was making earlier. These games all TELL a story. You aren't writing a story, as with a tabletop RPG. The game is telling the story to you. the game may have a wide variety of possible stories to tell, but that number is still relatively small compared to the infinity stories that even D&D is able to tell. When that number is so small, and the only value the game has is the story it is telling, watch it on YouTube.
As for you people who keep repeating that my lack of knowledge about this particular game invalidates any comment I have to make, let this be known.
1) My comments about the mediocre third person shooting pertain only to Mass Effect 1 and 2. I have never seen 3, or have no knowledge of it.
2) I obviously didn't even know there was multiplayer. This is a mistake people often make. They'll say a game "has" multiplayer as if that is a benefit to the game itself. In fact multiplayer is an entirely separate game. Super Mario Bros 3 actually has two completely different games in it. The 1 player and the 2 player game. They may share many things, but they are separate games. The single player game doesn't get a higher appraisal because the multiplayer is good.
3) Sometimes knowing one thing is enough to make one point. You might invent a brand new game. I may know nothing about this game. Then you may tell me just one fact about the game, for example that it is a perfect information game. From that one fact about the game I can draw many many completely true conclusions about the game that must hold true if it is in fact a perfect information game.
Knowing nothing else about Mass Effect 3, I know that it only has a handful of endings. I also know that the company that made the game used this language in its advertising.
"experience the beginning, middle, and end of an emotional story unlike any other, where the decisions you make completely shape your experience and outcome."
With only those small amount of facts I can draw all sorts of conclusions about certain aspects of the game while making no judgement whatsoever on the other parts of the game about which I have no knowledge.
To make one more example. You could tell me you have a new FPS game. You tell me just one fact, the player speed is very slow. From that one fact, I can draw many correct conclusions about many aspects of the game. Mostly that it will not be a difficult test of reflexes or aiming. If those skills are tested in the game, it will be a very easy and boring game. And so on. I do this without saying anything at all about other aspects of the game.
Scott, the events along the way in Mass Effect are a bit more than Chrono Trigger. The endings are samey crap, but the details change. Side characters have different ends (or deaths as the case may be). The "Cowboy Bebop character" narrative changes even if the "Cowboy Bebop universe plot" doesn't.
To make one more example. You could tell me you have a new FPS game. You tell me just one fact, the player speed is very slow. From that one fact, I can draw many correct conclusions about many aspects of the game. Mostly that it will not be a difficult test of reflexes or aiming. If those skills are tested in the game, it will be a very easy and boring game. And so on. I do this without saying anything at all about other aspects of the game.
And it's still possible for you to be very, very wrong - because you're assuming that you're trying to shoot the other players, and that the only thing preventing you from shooting the other players is their movement. What if you're trying to shoot fast-moving targets apart from the players, or the players can only be injured with very precise shooting?
Admittedly, it's something I'm making up specifically to spite your expectations, but my point is that you're prejudging games too extensively, Scott.
However, I will admit that Mass Effect is not a particularly high-skill shooter, and that there isn't much variety between encounters. I will say that powers add a significant amount of interesting tactical options to the combat, and I find it quite fun. I will also claim that you cannot definitively say that it is not fun until you play the game.
So the reason people are upset about the ending to Mass Effect is that, up until the last hour or so of ME3, the games give the player the impression that their choices matter - that their accomplishments regarding whether characters live or die, which side wins the disputes that you get to mediate, which characters you get to like you - matter in the larger context of the game universe. They give players the impression that the results of the story hinge on how they make certain choices during the game - and then the ending appears to be the same for any person going through the game. You have the same final choice, with the same results, no matter what you've been doing for your last hundred hours of playing the Mass Effect game.
And, believe it or not, people are invested in that story, and they feel cheated that the story they created ends the same way as everybody else's.
Scott, the events along the way in Mass Effect are a bit more than Chrono Trigger. The endings are samey crap, but the details change. Side characters have different ends (or deaths as the case may be). The "Cowboy Bebop character" narrative changes even if the "Cowboy Bebop universe plot" doesn't.
Each sub-plot is a game in and of itself with only a few possible choices. Oh, this particular character can go four different ways. Let me go watch all four ways on YouTube.
To make one more example. You could tell me you have a new FPS game. You tell me just one fact, the player speed is very slow. From that one fact, I can draw many correct conclusions about many aspects of the game. Mostly that it will not be a difficult test of reflexes or aiming. If those skills are tested in the game, it will be a very easy and boring game. And so on. I do this without saying anything at all about other aspects of the game.
And it's still possible for you to be very, very wrong - because you're assuming that you're trying to shoot the other players, and that the only thing preventing you from shooting the other players is their movement. What if you're trying to shoot fast-moving targets apart from the players, or the players can only be injured with very precise shooting?
Admittedly, it's something I'm making up specifically to spite your expectations, but my point is that you're prejudging games too extensively, Scott.
However, I will admit that Mass Effect is not a particularly high-skill shooter, and that there isn't much variety between encounters. I will say that powers add a significant amount of interesting tactical options to the combat, and I find it quite fun. I will also claim that you cannot definitively say that it is not fun until you play the game.
Gimme 2 minutes, editing for story comments.
I would not be wrong at all. If YOU move slowly, shooting anything else becomes much easier. Even if that other thing is a fast moving or very small target. The hardest thing to do is to hit things while you yourself are moving quickly.
Also, you missed my point about judging only the aspect of a game over which I have knowledge. Not judging the entire game. Only judging aspects that I have knowledge about.
Also, fuck fun. Everyone in the god damn universe seems to think that if they play a game, and they have fun feelings while playing it, then the game is fun and good and awesome. I do not in any way judge anything based on the feelings I get from it.
If I play TF2 I generally have good feelings. It's a lot of laughs and the graphical style gives some good feelings. Lots of crazy things happen that make me say "oh shit!" Easy to see why so many people consider it fun. Game is still shit, and I still don't play it.
If I play a slot machine in a casino I have some pretty positive and fun feelings. Anticipation, hope, fear. You don't see me playing them, or suggesting to anyone else that they should.
I haven't ever tried cocaine, but I'm positive it would give me some good feelings if I did. Don't see me doing that or saying it's a good idea because it's fun.
In the converse Go is the most boring un-fun game in the universe, as far as I'm concerned. I get no good feelings from it. Other people do get good feelings from it. It's also an amazing game. I don't play that either because the time investment is not worth it!
Fun doesn't justify anything. Fun is completely unrelated to any judgement I will ever make on anything. If you judge things based on fun, you are simply sharing the fact that your brain releases happy chemicals because of that particular thing. Congratulations. Nobody cares about your brain, even if many or most brains react similarly. I care about analyzing measurable aspects of the thing itself. All different human brains will react to the same thing with a full range of emotional responses. Those responses have no bearing on measuring the thing itself.
I have no fun with Go. Other people do have fun with Go. Those feelings do not factor in any way on the judgement of the game of Go as good, bad, or worthwhile.
I don't see how Uncharted is a failure in the gaming parts? The combat is super good and flows a lot better than like every other cover based shooter. Mass Effect's actual combat wasn't nearly as good, but I heard it got more action-y in 2 and 3 (never played the sequels), so maybe I'd enjoy them more.
When I was talking about Uncharted I was talking about only the singleplayer part. If you strip away the story it is not nearly the same experience and the only people I could see enjoying it that way are people who like playing against AI opponents. Now, as far as how good of a third-person shooter it is I will admit it does a fairly good job of that but I think that shines more in the multiplayer part than the singleplayer which is separate from the argument at hand. If the game only had the singleplayer and the story was gone I doubt it would have received nearly the praise it did.
Also, fuck fun. Everyone in the god damn universe seems to think that if they play a game, and they have fun feelings while playing it, then the game is fun
But any metric you use for determining whether a game is "good" is ultimately arbitrary, based on what you value in a game.
Fun doesn't justify anything. Fun is completely unrelated to any judgement I will ever make on anything.
I think you've said something the opposite of true. Because, what does it matter whether a game is "good" by whatever metric you use? What matters is the amount of utility you get out of a game - that is, fun. Aside from side-benefits you can get from a game, the core measurement of whether or not a game is worth playing for an individual is enjoyment vs. cost - if one wants enjoyment, one should opt for the game that gives the most enjoyment for the lowest cost.
In short, fuck "good." My having fun is all that matters to me.
Sorry, I meant my brain was incapable of producing any. It was rather like trying to squeeze water out of a rock. I stated this on my refund request, but was still denied.
Sorry, I meant my brain was incapable of producing any. It was rather like trying to squeeze water out of a rock. I stated this on my refund request, but was still denied.
Ahhhh. Fair enough, Different strokes for different folks and all that.
In short, fuck "good." My having fun is all that matters to me.
Why not do drugs? If all you want is good feelings, why play games? Just have sex all the time and eat luxurious food. Never do anything that's hard or challenging. Just do easy things that give out lots and lots of pleasure and never stop.
But you don't do that do you? Having fun isn't all that matters to you, is it?
Fun vs. cost is the primary consideration when judging a game, considering that the primary purpose of a game is to provide enjoyment for the participants.
The scope of my argument is currently limited to games.
But you don't do that do you? Having fun isn't all that matters to you, is it?
None of your examples are at all applicable to this situation. They all have obvious negative consequences and risks that makes it hard to compare the two. Drugs/Sex/Food all have direct negative health/monetary consequences involved with partaking in the "fun".
What possible direct negative consequence can come from having fun with a "not good" game?
In short, fuck "good." My having fun is all that matters to me.
Why not do drugs? If all you want is good feelings, why play games? Just have sex all the time and eat luxurious food. Never do anything that's hard or challenging. Just do easy things that give out lots and lots of pleasure and never stop.
But you don't do that do you? Having fun isn't all that matters to you, is it?
If all you want is a test of skill, why not spend all your time playing Counter-Strike? Why play 999, or F.E.A.R., or any of the other games you've played?
There's a difference between extremes, Scott. Some people want the fun of a story that they felt they had some involvment in. Some people want a test of skill. Nobody's saying that one should preclude the existence of the other.
But you don't do that do you? Having fun isn't all that matters to you, is it?
None of your examples are at all applicable to this situation. They all have obvious negative consequences and risks that makes it hard to compare the two. Drugs/Sex/Food all have direct negative health/monetary consequences involved with partaking in the "fun".
What possible direct negative consequence can come from having fun with a "not good" game?
Money and time, mostly time.
Final Fantasy. You get almost all the fun by watching the cutscenes and experiencing the story. That doesn't take very much time. Grinding can take TENS of hours. Imagine what you could have done with those hours. Now those hours of your life are stolen.
Remember, games are mind control. The people who made these games literally stole hours of your life from you. I seem to be the only one who even thinks its a good idea to resist, let alone being able to do so.
Fun is pretty subjective though, you can't define it for everyone. Grinding is boring and dull but some people really like it. Super Meat Boy, you die, and you die a lot. Same with CS for that matter. I love the challenge of overcoming a difficult obstacle, to me that is fun. Not everyone likes that and that is fine. I also like reading a good book or watching a good movie, those are fun activities. But trying to read Game of Thrones is boring as shit because I don't enjoy reading that type of book. But what I define as fun is completely different than what other people define as fun. A lot of people really WOW, personally I hate it. But who is to say that the people I know who play it don't have fun gallivanting around doing the same things to kill monsters over and over? I can only say that those activities are not fun for me, not for someone else.
New game coming out is a video game news isn't it?
So Skullgirls is out on Xbox Live Arcade and PSN (except PSN Europe). Don't you people tell me that I'm only one here who has interest in budget priced fighting game. It's missing some nice to have features now, but what's already there is pretty good. It has one of the best fighting game tutorials ever, not perfect, but at least it explains some consents that other game's tutorials doesn't. It has full story mode filled with pretty pictures, arcade mode that is sadly lacking of pictures, at least normal difficulty didn't give me any special character centric ending. Also most importantly there is working multi-player off- and on-line (haven't actually tested off-line multiplayer, but why wouldn't it work).
I'm not a expert on fighting games, but the basic mechanics work quite well. I'm just personally not a fan of six-button based systems (similar to Street Fighters, three punches and three kicks). As I don't have Stick it means that I have to use triggers and those just don't feel so good to use in hectic gaming. Although I'm getting used to it.
I can only say that those activities are not fun for me, not for someone else.
Excatly. This is why discussing the amount of fun a given game brings you is completely worthless. If you want to discuss or judge something, you can not use fun as any kind of measure. You must use some other ruler. Your personal emotions must be completely removed from the equation when evaluating the qualities of a thing. They are your emotions, and yours alone. They mean nothing to anyone else, so keep them to yourself.
Comments
1. The basic non-story gameplay looks pretty shit.
2. The "Choose Your Own Adventure" decide who I save/kiss/whatever gameplay looks fun.
3. Only a small percentage of the fans of Mass Effect appear to give one shit about item #1, caring only about #2.
4. Mass Effect proves there is a market for what amounts to a modern, choice-driven dating/story simulator. Think visual novels or adventure games in Japan. They should have gone full on with just that aspect, rather than cramming a mediocre game into what amounts to a story tweaker.
See, this is kinda why I'm actually kinda supportive of what they've done - You have an option, at the very, very start, where you can choose three options - You can play shooter-style, and all the dialog and other story stuff is rolled out like cutscenes, you can play it VN style, with the combat difficulty being turned way down, and turned to cutscenes as much as possible, but you play all the dialog options and make your choices as you go along. And they have the normal game mode, which is essentially Combat and Dialog both there to be played in full. A lot of people cracked up about it, but really, I'm all for it. It's an attempt to cater the game to more people, without changing the core game itself, and it doesn't get in the way if you want to play the game normally, you just click the "Normal" box at the start, and never worry about it again.
As for you people who keep repeating that my lack of knowledge about this particular game invalidates any comment I have to make, let this be known.
1) My comments about the mediocre third person shooting pertain only to Mass Effect 1 and 2. I have never seen 3, or have no knowledge of it.
2) I obviously didn't even know there was multiplayer. This is a mistake people often make. They'll say a game "has" multiplayer as if that is a benefit to the game itself. In fact multiplayer is an entirely separate game. Super Mario Bros 3 actually has two completely different games in it. The 1 player and the 2 player game. They may share many things, but they are separate games. The single player game doesn't get a higher appraisal because the multiplayer is good.
3) Sometimes knowing one thing is enough to make one point. You might invent a brand new game. I may know nothing about this game. Then you may tell me just one fact about the game, for example that it is a perfect information game. From that one fact about the game I can draw many many completely true conclusions about the game that must hold true if it is in fact a perfect information game.
Knowing nothing else about Mass Effect 3, I know that it only has a handful of endings. I also know that the company that made the game used this language in its advertising.With only those small amount of facts I can draw all sorts of conclusions about certain aspects of the game while making no judgement whatsoever on the other parts of the game about which I have no knowledge.
To make one more example. You could tell me you have a new FPS game. You tell me just one fact, the player speed is very slow. From that one fact, I can draw many correct conclusions about many aspects of the game. Mostly that it will not be a difficult test of reflexes or aiming. If those skills are tested in the game, it will be a very easy and boring game. And so on. I do this without saying anything at all about other aspects of the game.
Admittedly, it's something I'm making up specifically to spite your expectations, but my point is that you're prejudging games too extensively, Scott.
However, I will admit that Mass Effect is not a particularly high-skill shooter, and that there isn't much variety between encounters. I will say that powers add a significant amount of interesting tactical options to the combat, and I find it quite fun.
I will also claim that you cannot definitively say that it is not fun until you play the game.
So the reason people are upset about the ending to Mass Effect is that, up until the last hour or so of ME3, the games give the player the impression that their choices matter - that their accomplishments regarding whether characters live or die, which side wins the disputes that you get to mediate, which characters you get to like you - matter in the larger context of the game universe. They give players the impression that the results of the story hinge on how they make certain choices during the game - and then the ending appears to be the same for any person going through the game. You have the same final choice, with the same results, no matter what you've been doing for your last hundred hours of playing the Mass Effect game.
And, believe it or not, people are invested in that story, and they feel cheated that the story they created ends the same way as everybody else's.
Also, you missed my point about judging only the aspect of a game over which I have knowledge. Not judging the entire game. Only judging aspects that I have knowledge about.
Also, fuck fun. Everyone in the god damn universe seems to think that if they play a game, and they have fun feelings while playing it, then the game is fun and good and awesome. I do not in any way judge anything based on the feelings I get from it.
If I play TF2 I generally have good feelings. It's a lot of laughs and the graphical style gives some good feelings. Lots of crazy things happen that make me say "oh shit!" Easy to see why so many people consider it fun. Game is still shit, and I still don't play it.
If I play a slot machine in a casino I have some pretty positive and fun feelings. Anticipation, hope, fear. You don't see me playing them, or suggesting to anyone else that they should.
I haven't ever tried cocaine, but I'm positive it would give me some good feelings if I did. Don't see me doing that or saying it's a good idea because it's fun.
In the converse Go is the most boring un-fun game in the universe, as far as I'm concerned. I get no good feelings from it. Other people do get good feelings from it. It's also an amazing game. I don't play that either because the time investment is not worth it!
Fun doesn't justify anything. Fun is completely unrelated to any judgement I will ever make on anything. If you judge things based on fun, you are simply sharing the fact that your brain releases happy chemicals because of that particular thing. Congratulations. Nobody cares about your brain, even if many or most brains react similarly. I care about analyzing measurable aspects of the thing itself. All different human brains will react to the same thing with a full range of emotional responses. Those responses have no bearing on measuring the thing itself.
I have no fun with Go. Other people do have fun with Go. Those feelings do not factor in any way on the judgement of the game of Go as good, bad, or worthwhile.
In short, fuck "good." My having fun is all that matters to me.
But you don't do that do you? Having fun isn't all that matters to you, is it?
The scope of my argument is currently limited to games.
What possible direct negative consequence can come from having fun with a "not good" game?
There's a difference between extremes, Scott. Some people want the fun of a story that they felt they had some involvment in. Some people want a test of skill. Nobody's saying that one should preclude the existence of the other.
Final Fantasy. You get almost all the fun by watching the cutscenes and experiencing the story. That doesn't take very much time. Grinding can take TENS of hours. Imagine what you could have done with those hours. Now those hours of your life are stolen.
Remember, games are mind control. The people who made these games literally stole hours of your life from you. I seem to be the only one who even thinks its a good idea to resist, let alone being able to do so.
So Skullgirls is out on Xbox Live Arcade and PSN (except PSN Europe). Don't you people tell me that I'm only one here who has interest in budget priced fighting game. It's missing some nice to have features now, but what's already there is pretty good. It has one of the best fighting game tutorials ever, not perfect, but at least it explains some consents that other game's tutorials doesn't. It has full story mode filled with pretty pictures, arcade mode that is sadly lacking of pictures, at least normal difficulty didn't give me any special character centric ending. Also most importantly there is working multi-player off- and on-line (haven't actually tested off-line multiplayer, but why wouldn't it work).
I'm not a expert on fighting games, but the basic mechanics work quite well. I'm just personally not a fan of six-button based systems (similar to Street Fighters, three punches and three kicks). As I don't have Stick it means that I have to use triggers and those just don't feel so good to use in hectic gaming. Although I'm getting used to it.