So, what you playing at the mo? Retro Edition

Retr0gamer

Gamer Bhoy 89 wrote: »

The Novistadores in the sewers. My reaction time is nothing like it used to be and they keep jumping all over the place. I hate their acid-vomit maneuver - takes way too much health off me.

They do have the best death animation though!

Never found that part too difficult but I've ninja reflexes if my sekiro playthrough says anything.

Gamer Bhoy 89

Retr0gamer wrote: »

They do have the best death animation though!

Never found that part too difficult but I've ninja reflexes if my sekiro playthrough says anything.

I dunno how I did it in the past, to be brutally honest. In theory they're simple enough -- just shoot them with a riot gun in 4 hits or thereabouts; result.

It's when they leap onto the ceiling/wall that throws me off. I might have to wear headphones when I go back to it so I can hear where they are......... Again, I dunno how I done it as a teenager with a mono-speaker CRT that's half the size of the TV I'm using now.

Mr.Saturn

Gamer Bhoy 89 wrote: »

The Novistadores in the sewers. My reaction time is nothing like it used to be and they keep jumping all over the place. I hate their acid-vomit maneuver - takes way too much health off me.

I get it, they're notorious in the RE:4 speedrun community as their behaviour is so unpredictable they can make or break a run.

bmorrissey

All this talk of RE4 makes me wanna play it again, might play assignment Ada or some mercenaries tonight.

Retr0gamer

Played a bit of Megaman 7 on the side but it turned out to be easy enough and ended up inhaling it and finishing it.

But when I say easy enough it was pretty easy until I got to the last boss which was an absolutely insane difficulty spike. Turns out this is regarded as the toughest final boss in the series. Read the game was made in a 3 month rush and they wanted to make the last boss stupidly hard and requiring E-Tanks to finish. I actually think you don't have enough shots of the only weapon that damages him to kill him.

It's a decent game but you can tell it was rushed. There's a horror themed level with an easter egg where it will play the ghouls n'ghost music remixed.

The music in these snes megaman games is good but it's not a patch on the NES compositions which are way better.

o1s1n

LIGHTNING wrote: »

Played it recently enough, is starts to fall apart near the end. Still a great game

I found the game went on a bit longer than expected. There were a couple of occasions when it felt like it might be over soon and then it continued on for more stages.

Really enjoyed every moment of it but yeah, towards the end it didn't feel quite as focused as it did earlier on.

Inviere

Finished The Last of Us Remastered, & the Left Behind DLC. Loved every minute of it. I'm a total sucker for linear games which have a strong narrative, & this excels in that regard. They created a beautiful game world, and they nailed the whole sense of decay. Characters, voice acting, music, controls, AI, graphics, sounds, enemies....they just nailed it.

No spoilers for the sequel please, planning on playing through that quite soon. I gather the it's polarised people for whatever reason though.

Retr0gamer

Inviere wrote: »

Finished The Last of Us Remastered, & the Left Behind DLC. Loved every minute of it. I'm a total sucker for linear games which have a strong narrative, & this excels in that regard. They created a beautiful game world, and they nailed the whole sense of decay. Characters, voice acting, music, controls, AI, graphics, sounds, enemies....they just nailed it.

No spoilers for the sequel please, planning on playing through that quite soon. I gather the it's polarised people for whatever reason though.

No spoilers.

The initial polarisation was because bigots couldn't handle some of the themes of the game. And incredibly for bigots what they were shouting loudest about was something that the completely got wrong about the game.

The later polarisation is that the story and writing is really weak especially compared to the first game. It's also way too long. I did actually find the gameplay a lot of fun but not for the 20 hours or so it took to beat.

I do really like the Last of Us despite my criticism of it, I just have a big issue with one scene at the end of the game that really irks me and kind of ruins it. Although by ruins its more frustration that it was almost incredible than it being entirely worthless.

Left Behind on the other hand is pretty much the best thing Naughty Dog have done. Fantastic little slice of narrative that isn't afraid to slow down, something naughty dog games should do more often.

Inviere

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I do really like the Last of Us despite my criticism of it, I just have a big issue with one scene at the end of the game that really irks me and kind of ruins it. Although by ruins its more frustration that it was almost incredible than it being entirely worthless.

Explain...

Left Behind on the other hand is pretty much the best thing Naughty Dog have done. Fantastic little slice of narrative that isn't afraid to slow down, something naughty dog games should do more often.

It really was brilliant. Like, properly brilliant.

Mr.Saturn

Left Behind seemed to have a eureka moment regarding using the infected to fend off human enemies and vice versa - which has me wondering, was there limitations on base LOU that stopped them from offering this as a mechanic or did it actually just occur to them when developing Left Behind?

Retr0gamer

Inviere wrote: »

Explain...

The scene in the surgery. I don't know was it because I was studying game design at the time but I found it a total failure of game design.

The issue for me is that the game gives the player choice by letting them move around and has full free will. There's only one choice the player can make, Joels choice of killing the doctor. And if you don't want to do that the whole game scene falls apart. If you try to bypass it the scene gets really janky and you get stuff like me shooting the doctor in the toe because I didn't want to kill him and him dropping dead.

The issue is the game is Joel's story not the player's. Up to that point all those decisions are played out in cutscenes as it's joel's not the player's decision and its his story. Giving the player the illusion of choice when there isn't any just sets them up for suspension of disbelief to be shattered.

I've been told I was being nitpicky but it was really jarring for me. Apparently I should have been so caught up in the story that I should have killed him without hesitation. But I can't really accept that as there's going to be people
where that doesn't work.

It's a failure of game design to me. It's basically like the impassable knee high barrier. As a game designer you should know that if the player is given an oppurtunity like that to go explore something off the beaten track they are more likely than not to test it and if you rub up against an invisible wall you shatter the suspension of disbelief. This is what happened to me here.

I get what they were going for, making the player more involved. And I don't think that it needed to be an non interactive cutscene either. Other games have done it better. Spec Ops the Line has these moral dilemma moments but handles different player choices really well (and I think Last of Us tried to copy this game and didn't quite grasp what Spec Ops did, but that's speculation on my part). I think a better example again is the end of Metal Gear Solid 3 where there's a similar event but the game does a better job of giving the player just that one choice so it's Snake's decision but the player is also involved in it.

It doesn't ruin the game, it's just a tiny blemish I have with it right at the end but it's hard to discuss it when the entire internet is shouting at me and doesn't want to discuss what I think is actually a really interesting game design topic to explore[

Either that or I'm just really annoying.

Inviere

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Either that or I'm just really annoying

I completely agree in that regard. At that moment, the forced decision wouldn't have been one I'd have made unless the game forced me to. I suppose in that sense, it is a minor break in the game mechanics....there should have been a choice as to whether you wanted to or not, because it wouldn't have made any difference to the story. I found it off putting in that moment, but after the scene, I'd forgotten about it.

Retr0gamer

It's minor in the grand scheme of things it's just something that really stuck with me because it had been perfectly presented up to that point, it was the first time anything like this was present to the player in the game and probably fresh in my memory because I was learning it at the time but it was a game design 101 failure I was surprised they made.

In a lesser game I probably would have glossed over it but it stood out as I said because the rest of the game was mostly spot on. The game becoming too videogamy at parts is another issue I think naughty dog have been struggling with. Left behind I felt really addressed that. And last of us 2 totally ignored.

Aside from nitpicks I do love how it's all a character study of Joel and handled really well.

He is a selfish asshole who is given a chance at redemption and blows it for selfish reasons but then it's a very hard decision to make.

The biggest issue I have with the sequel is that it's so black and white compared to the nuance of joel in the first and ends up so much less interesting.

Inviere

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Aside from nitpicks I do love how it's all a character study of Joel and handled really well.

He is a selfish asshole who is given a chance at redemption and blows it for selfish reasons but then it's a very hard decision to make.

Oh, I didn't come to that conclusion at all during the game. For me,

he's a guy who just absolutely cannot accept the loss of his daughter. Anything that means him having to process her loss, he rejects. The journey of the game isn't really the journey to find the Fireflys, it's the journey of Joel bonding with Ellie, and ultimately accepting his daughers loss, and accepting Ellie as someone he came to care for.

Retr0gamer

Well I definitely saw that as well but, and I might be reading into it a bit more,

since his daughters death joel has become a very selfish person and an asshole. I think his bonding with Ellie was his redemption arc. What makes it more interesting is that we don't get the disney ending. People dont really change and underneath it all joel was always that selfish asshole and it's that which ruins his redemption arc. There might be altruistic reasons for doing what he did at the end but what I got from it is he did it for himself. He couldn't let Ellie go. And the final scene when he lies to her shows that he might have saved her but ruined their relationship forever.

It's why I don't understand how people can call joel a hero. All through the game there's hints of that selfish joel coming out. The

torture scene in particular. It's always bubbling away under the surface and in the end he lets it ruin his own redemption

Inviere

LIGHTNING wrote: »

The story isn't anything new and its been done to death by many a good/crap Sci-fi film.

Ah you could say the same for many genres though, the standout will be if they do it well or not. In terms of the end-of-world/apocalypse trope, personally I feel The Last of Us really nails it. The ravaged world felt real, the enemies weren't overused, the sense of hopelessness was abundant, the sense of nature taking over was everywhere....compared to something like Dying Light, give me TLoU any day of the week.

CiDeRmAn

I really enjoyed the story telling, particularly as a parent.
But I always thought the actual game was as vanilla but solid as they came, seeing as it was the unchallenging Uncharted engine chugging away in the background.
Then again, would the game have survived an auteurs approach to the game engine and the story line, akin to Killer 7 or No More Heroes, or were they better to focus the challenge on the situations and story beats the game put you into?

For me, the most impressive and affecting scenes were

where the boy speaks to Ellie about what happens to the infected, to their soul, and she gives a angry, pithy response, not realising that he has been bitten and, overnight, turns and the consequences then for him and his brother, with whom we have developed familiarity and the tragedy and shock at their loss.
The scene in the snow, as Ellie is controlled and is hunting before the story turns to being hunted, brilliant.
And that is an example of a solid game engine being used to perfection to build a dramatic and threatening stage upon which this new horror is played out.

Inviere

Retr0gamer wrote: »

There might be altruistic reasons for doing what he did at the end but what I got from it is he did it for himself. He couldn't let Ellie go. And the final scene when he lies to her shows that he might have saved her but ruined their relationship forever.

For me, he did the right thing. It's a classic moral dilemma situation, so it's going to be very subjective. Personally,

I felt developing a vaccine at the cost of an innocent life, means humanities survival would forever be tainted. Would be be any better than the infected at that rate? What sets humanity apart, should be its ability to not take the easy way out, and rise above the challenge. Surviving on the back of murder, I dunno.

By that stage, Joel had really bonded with Ellie. The close call of nearly losing her to that freak when Joel was injured was a wake up call for him. Their journey together was one of hope, or promise...but to essentially end up delivering her to her death? No, too much for him, and I can see why he did what he did. Does it make him selfish to save her life at the expense of untold lives? Arguably yes...but I'm not sure I see him as a selfish asshole at any time in the game. A man with an open would for sure, but a good person at heart.

Inviere

LIGHTNING wrote: »

Plenty of medical advancements were done in the past using "questionable" methods. Not to mention the huge advancements in other scientific areas (Space being a prime example) . I don't think humanity would be tainted

As I said, it's subjective, and that's a very detached view of it too. Unless you're in that situation, faced with that decision...then it's easy to rationalise it.

I'd be very surprised if anyone here is letting a real friend be murdered like that.

Retr0gamer

I think it's the why he did it that is the most damning.

He didn't do it for Ellie's sake, he did it for himself. It was him that needed Ellie as a surrogate daughter. And that's why at the end he lies to her. It's not to protect her, it's so he won't lose her. But by telling her he will lose her in the end anyway. And that's why he is a selfish asshole in the end. There's also the fact he takes the nuclear option with everything. Killing smugglers, torture and a wanton rage of violence in the end. It seems throughout everytime to think Joel is finally learning and becoming a better person the real selfish Joel comes out and screws it up.

Inviere

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I think it's the why he did it that is the most damning.

He didn't do it for Ellie's sake, he did it for himself. It was him that needed Ellie as a surrogate daughter. And that's why at the end he lies to her. It's not to protect her, it's so he won't lose her. But by telling her he will lose her in the end anyway. And that's why he is a selfish asshole in the end. There's also the fact he takes the nuclear option with everything. Killing smugglers, torture and a wanton rage of violence in the end. It seems throughout everytime to think Joel is finally learning and becoming a better person the real selfish Joel comes out and screws it up.

He told Ellie what he did because it was then he realised she was blaming herself for a lot of things. He wanted to protect the person she is, & not let her become dejected, angry, & lost....much like he was previously.

Further, pretty much everyone and every thing Joel & Ellie encounter wants to kill them....it was a kill or be killed world, & he did what he had to do to survive, and to ensure Ellie's survival. You raise a good point in that he didn't want to let her go at the end, but I don't think that's the sole reason he took the actions he did.

Retr0gamer

It's good to be able to discuss it. And even though we interpret it different it think that's testament to how strong the writing is.

That's in stark contrast to last of us 2....

Inviere

Retr0gamer wrote: »

That's in stark contrast to last of us 2....

Dying to play it, but need to wait until I've got a sufficient chunk of time to devote to it. I don't want to be giving it an hour a week kinda thing.

In the meantime, I've started Sonic 3 again. I've never completed it in one sitting, in fact, I don't think I've ever gotten beyond the Launch Base zone (at the very end of the game). I know everyone loves the Sonic 3 sprites, but I really miss the Sonic 1 spritework....I just don't like how they changed the look for Sonic 3.

o1s1n

Fat Sonic 1 sprite for the win! Miles better than anything that came after it.

Did you play that Sonic 1 prototype much actually? I've played through it a few times now, it's just so weird noting all the differences.

What I find especially weird is stuff that was removed from the final game. Still in two minds whether or not they should have remove the alternative Sonic sprite of him punching the air when you finish a level and jump around.

The boulders are really weird too, would love to know what the logic was with them.

Inviere

o1s1n wrote: »

Fat Sonic 1 sprite for the win! Miles better than anything that came after it.

Did you play that Sonic 1 prototype much actually? I've played through it a few times now, it's just so weird noting all the differences.

What I find especially weird is stuff that was removed from the final game. Still in two minds whether or not they should have remove the alternative Sonic sprite of him punching the air when you finish a level and jump around.

The boulders are really weird too, would love to know what the logic was with them.

Yeah played a few mins of it, it's bizarre. The boulders are really weird, the guys at Digital Foundry in a livestream reckoned the boulders were placed there as a physics test by the devs. Makes sense I suppose. The victory jump needed to go, it's horrible It's a weird build of the game, great to see it & be able to play it.

Retr0gamer

Inviere wrote: »

Dying to play it, but need to wait until I've got a sufficient chunk of time to devote to it. I don't want to be giving it an hour a week kinda thing.

Take a break. Even without coming straight from a TPS you'll be burned out long before the end.

Was talking to a friend at xmas who told me he was near the end of the game and going to finish it that night. Told me where he was. I told him he was 7 hours into a 22 hour game

Inviere wrote: »

Yeah played a few mins of it, it's bizarre. The boulders are really weird, the guys at Digital Foundry in a livestream reckoned the boulders were placed there as a physics test by the devs. Makes sense I suppose. The victory jump needed to go, it's horrible It's a weird build of the game, great to see it & be able to play it.

I think that's pretty much it. They were put in the levels because they had a fancy physics engine that could do weird things but they got removed because they broke up the flow of the game and added nothing to the gameplay.

o1s1n

I find it incredibly interesting to see how fine tuned it is to keep the forward momentum going.

One part that really stood out is in Marble Zone. There's a bit I'm sure you know all too well where Sonic drops down and a lava flow starts moving towards him from the left, you've to run through a tunnel area with obstacles.

The placement of the obstacles seems like they'll slow you down, but if you do it right you can more or less run through and keep going forward.

In the prototype the obstacles are very different and slow you down. Feels like there's more danger, but it removes that forward momentum.

The prototype is littered with moments like that where that forward momentum is hindered, which were altered or removed from the final game.

Really made me appreciate the level design in the final product a lot more.

Retr0gamer

That's what game development is all about. It's not just placing obstacles in the players way, there's a lot of play testing to figure out what flows better and makes a better feeling game. This sonic prototype really highlights how small changes like obstacle placement can make a game so much better.

I had it myself where I added a mechanic to my own game and was really proud of it as it took a huge amount of work to implement and worked perfectly. All the play testers complained it was too hard and had a big argument about removing it with the project manager to come out of the meeting in a massive huff after winning the argument to then realise that it was a game to teach kids maths and making it too hard wasn't the right thing. Had to apologise to the PM and then ended up rolling back and losing all that work.

I think the funniest story is with diablo. It was initially a turn based rogue like but all the staff wanted it to be real time. The director had a massive argument saying it wouldn't work and the whole game would need to be rebuilt from scratch to make it real time. He went home with the current build, managed to make the game real time in about 2 hours of coding and when he played it it was a total revelation and pretty much invented a new genre

o1s1n wrote: »

Fat Sonic 1 sprite for the win! Miles better than anything that came after it.

I see what you did there!

DaveyDave

Played through Max Payne 3 in the last two days. I haven't played it since it came out and I've been meaning to give it another go. HEALTH did the soundtrack and I've been listening to them a fair bit lately which probably made me finally commit.

I wasn't a big fan when I first played it and I'm still on the fence. I can't say that I like it but I don't dislike it. I played on 360, it would definitely benefit from a mouse and keyboard. Some of the levels felt too cramped for a third person shooter and some times I spent too long sitting in cover clearing loads of enemies because there was too many of them for bullet time and when it was safe to do so, it wasn't worth it.

It's probably the only Rockstar game that I don't care to replay for harder difficulty, achievements or multiplayer.

Retr0gamer

I'd rank the manhunt games as the worst they've made. Absolute poison wrapped up in a edgelord aesthetic.