Best game of the last gen.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

aaronjumper wrote: »

Is it on Xbox?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dark-Souls-Prepare-Edition-Xbox/dp/B009GG3074/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1387570174&sr=8-1&keywords=dark+souls+prepare+to+die+xbox

yepyepyep

prepare to die edition comes with the dlc (which is awesome and seamlessly integrated into the main game)

--edit

http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-IE/Product/Dark-Souls/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d8024e4d083a

http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-IE/Product/Dark-Souls-Artorias-of-the-Abyss/b41a6de8-ac7e-447a-826f-50239b4503e5


you can buy it on the xbox digitally too but **** that for a lark, almost double the price of getting it from amazon

Harps

Sticking with the consensus I'll have to say Dark Souls as well, I'd consider the mystery and lack of tutorials and explanations one of the best things about the game, its lead to a great online community and really helps you get invested in the game when you spend so much time discussing it with other people. The thread on this forum is a testament to that, a two year old single player game yet its barely been off the front page of the forum since release

Kirby

Harps wrote: »

Sticking with the consensus I'll have to say Dark Souls as well, I'd consider the mystery and lack of tutorials and explanations one of the best things about the game, its lead to a great online community and really helps you get invested in the game when you spend so much time discussing it with other people. The thread on this forum is a testament to that, a two year old single player game yet its barely been off the front page of the forum since release

I would argue this says more about it's massive barrier for entry. Most threads around here are full of discussion of a game. Dark souls' thread is full of questions. Constant questions every single page even after two years as new players show up and are bamboozled. Not philosophical questions or debates about art style or graphics....but questions like "How do I do this?" and "what does that do?"

As I said, difficulty is fine. Complexity is fine. Letting the player explore is to be admired. But when the developers themselves admit that they should have done a better job at explaining the game to players, it's okay to admit that maybe it wasn't very user friendly. Retro's claim that "it's all there" in game in the help menu simply isn't accurate. I'm not making this stuff up. Dark souls confused the hell out of nearly everyone. Those of us who played it at launch remember this.

richymcdermott

Kirby wrote: »

I would argue this says more about it's massive barrier for entry. Most threads around here are full of discussion of a game. Dark souls' thread is full of questions. Constant questions every single page even after two years as new players show up and are bamboozled. Not philosophical questions or debates about art style or graphics....but questions like "How do I do this?" and "what does that do?"

As I said, difficulty is fine. Complexity is fine. Letting the player explore is to be admired. But when the developers themselves admit that they should have done a better job at explaining the game to players, it's okay to admit that maybe it wasn't very user friendly. Retro claimed "it's all there" in game in the help menu simply isn't accurate. I'm not making this stuff up. Dark souls confused the hell out of nearly everyone. Those of us who played it at launch remember this.

Some of the best stories are best when its left to interpretation without telling exactly what was going on not just with videogames but other mediums alike. I like this aspect that I could go into something thinking what was going on and look it up and see I was completely wrong. But I understand your points you brought up aswell.

Kirby

Oh well I completely agree about the story. I loved picking up a random item with a titbit of information on it and piecing the world together. That sort of stuff is great. I was talking purely game mechanics.

kaimera

ME trilogy by far the standout for me.

Red Dead a close second with Fallout

Tommy_NDX

Kirby wrote: »

I played Dark souls. It's excellent. I put untold hours into it. I'd recommend it. I'll definitely buy Dark Souls II.

But you simply can't call it the best game of the last gen. There is just too much wrong with it. Putting aside minor gripes like the wooden animation, clipping issues and the idiotic AI running off cliffs....which are issues but aren't as important as others issues which really plague the game.

There is a difference between making a game difficult and making it obtuse. Challenge is fine, but a person shouldn't have to go to online guides and forums to figure out the games mechanics. Conveyance.

What is humanity? How do I get it and what does it do? What is the difference between being hallowed and human? How do I kindle a bonfire and what does it do? How do I play with my friend? How do I use magic? What's the difference between atonement and intelligence? How does scaling work? and so on. These are questions that nearly every new player asks and the game does virtually nothing to teach you. As veterans, these questions seem idiotic and obvious but we were all asking the same thing at release.

There were server issues for months after release. Summoning worked fine sometimes and not at all other times. The lagfest backstab city that was pvp. It's online infrastructure was a confusing, convoluted mess......they've admitted that the game had problems with players being confused and vowed to make the sequel make more sense to the player.

It was a good game overall, no doubt. But it wouldn't surprise me if the sequel is better in nearly every single way.

Kirby wrote: »

I would argue this says more about it's massive barrier for entry. Most threads around here are full of discussion of a game. Dark souls' thread is full of questions. Constant questions every single page even after two years as new players show up and are bamboozled. Not philosophical questions or debates about art style or graphics....but questions like "How do I do this?" and "what does that do?"

As I said, difficulty is fine. Complexity is fine. Letting the player explore is to be admired. But when the developers themselves admit that they should have done a better job at explaining the game to players, it's okay to admit that maybe it wasn't very user friendly. Retro's claim that "it's all there" in game in the help menu simply isn't accurate. I'm not making this stuff up. Dark souls confused the hell out of nearly everyone. Those of us who played it at launch remember this.

Sure things could be explained better, but a lot of the things in your other post are explained in game. Anyways I think getting help from others online fits with the games multiplayer pretty well, where you get help from others online.

Magill

I dunno... i didn't think the game was overly complex at all. I thought the lack of hand holding was one of its biggest plusses. For a game that usually takes people 60-70 hours to complete first time around, i don't think looking up a few things or reading the manual every now and then is such a bad thing.

Im curious as to what your number 1 game is of last gen kirby ? If only to tell you why it isn't.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

Magill wrote: »

Im curious as to what your number 1 game is of last gen kirby ? If only to tell you why it isn't.

BURN THE UNBELIEVER

Retr0gamer

I was perfectly fine getting through the game and understanding it without getting help. It really is all there in the game it's just players are so used to being hand fed everything that it comes as a shock that they actually have to work at finding out how the game works by investing time in it.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I was perfectly fine getting through the game and understanding it without getting help. It really is all there in the game it's just players are so used to being hand fed everything that it comes as a shock that they actually have to work at finding out how the game works by investing time in it.

the only thing I can thijnk of that isnt in the game is that being human is neccesary for online play

also

the return path to the undead asylum is very very very well hidden. very very very well hidden.

very well hidden

Retr0gamer

That's purely optional, I think. It's there for the hardcore to find

Grayditch

Nothing gave me as much fear, paranoia, pain, joy and sense of accomplishment as Demon's Souls. Dark Souls is as good for me, so either one of those.

eddhorse

I still haven't completed Dark Souls but it's still very high up my list.

1.Journey
2.Walking Dead
3.Dark Souls
4.Uncharted Series
5. Super Mario 64

RasTa

Street Fighter 4 AE. Perfection.

iamanengine

This has more or less turned into a secondary Dark Souls thread :pac:

A testament to the game I suppose!

F1ngers

Demon's Souls for me.

The first time I got invaded, "I was wtf?".
He had that armour breaking weapon(forget what it's called), dirty baxtard. Cost me a fortune to repair my equipment.

Then I got to the Tower Knight, "ah, come on. no feckin way".

Plenty more WOW moments in that game.

Absolutely love that game.

Kirby

Magill wrote: »

Im curious as to what your number 1 game is of last gen kirby ? If only to tell you why it isn't.

I think picking a single game out of a 7 or 8 year stretch is a little difficult as two games might be brilliant but game A will do something better than game B and vice versa. Plus, it's fairly subjective. You can't really tell somebody that their opinion is "wrong". But you can point out flaws in a game that you feel people are ignoring.

I'm fairly easy to please and have loved hundreds of games in that large a time period. I play games like Ryse and Knack that other people absolutely pillory...and I enjoy them and will argue their virtues so I guess I'm weird like that.

But if you forced me to answer......no game is perfect but I think If I had to pick one which I think combined so many aspects really well, it would be the Last of Us.

There was a thread very similar to this 3 weeks ago called "Game of the year 2013" which you can see here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057094822 and nearly every person picked the Last of us in the same way that loads of people picked Dark souls in here. There could be a bit of hive mentality going on.....I'm not sure.

It's a lot easier to go with the flow of a thread than voice a dissenting opinion. Dark Souls and The Last of Us were fairly niche games that sold reasonably well but never reached the heights of a Call of Duty or GTA or FIFA.

Nearly everyone in this Games forum played Dark Souls and The Last of Us so it's not shocking that those are the answers given. If you ask it in the Nintendo forum, most will say Mario Galaxy. The point I'm trying to make I guess is that if you ask a question like "What's the best game you've played?" in an JRPG forum.....you are going to get JRPG answers because that's what people in there enjoy. I wasn't criticising Dark Souls because I think its a bad game. I think people took me up wrong on that. I loved it.

But this forum had a bit of a love in for the game that you wont see elsewhere. "Anyone" posted earlier that he put it down after a few minutes and never went back to it and I think there are a lot of people out there that aren't on this forum who would tell you a similar story. Personally, I feel a "Best game of the generation" would have to go to a game that was nearly universally adored. There will always be dissenters but a game where 95% of people will tell you its great like Mario 64 or Ocarina of Time. Dark souls isn't that. It's too unforgiving and hardcore for a lot of people and they will state that unapologetically.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

the fact that it's too good (fine fine, unforgiving and hardcore) for a lot of people isn't a point against it....

it's not neccessarily a point in its favour either but it's definitely not a point against it

people listen to coldplay and voted for the nazis, you can't trust people

Kirby

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

the fact that it's too good (fine fine, unforgiving and hardcore) for a lot of people isn't a point against it....

Surely it is a point against it? It's not a point against it for you, but we are talking in generality here.

A game having a large learning curve is a detractor in the same way as a game being to easy is. Both are problems. Some people will prefer the easy game and some prefer the harder game......but everyone can try the easy one. The difficult one has a barrier of entry that some people simply can't pass.

Now you might say, "screw those people, hand held idiots cant understand the brilliance of the game" and so on but if the game is turning people away from playing it.......for any reason....than it's a legitimate problem and is a point against it, as you called it.

Anyway, my issue with Dark Souls was not the difficulty. I play difficult games even if I don't fully understand why. "I Wanna Be the Guy" was incredibly difficult and a trial and error marathon that I played for countless hours. But the game explained the rules to you. It was upfront with you. Dark Souls wasn't.

BobbyPropane

Oblivion, Fallout 3, Assassins Creed II, Farcry 3, Red Dead Redemption, Borderlands 1 and 2 . Quite hard to choose between them!

Anyway I never played any Wii games so can't say anything about that

Retr0gamer

Kirby wrote: »

A game having a large learning curve is a detractor in the same way as a game being to easy is. Both are problems. Some people will prefer the easy game and some prefer the harder game......but everyone can try the easy one. The difficult one has a barrier of entry that some people simply can't pass.

Well it's kind of like discounting a film because it's subtitled. Those kind of people might have an opinion but quite frankly I'm not interested in it.

You want to pick a game that would appeal to as general an audience as possible as your best game of 2013 but that's impossible since you can't really be say you you know what everyone likes. It's the same as me wanting to force everyone to play Dark Souls until they like it but unfortunately my political campaign to become the world leader that can implement these laws is floundering.

In other words just pick your own personal favourite. If you went the other way it would probably just end up being Fifa. It's ok to say Dark Souls :P

Kirby

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Well it's kind of like discounting a film because it's subtitled. Those kind of people might have an opinion but quite frankly I'm not interested in it.

The better movie gives people the option of watching it in subtitles, in it's original audio without subs, in their own language, etc. If you only give one option, people are going to discount it and that isn't their fault....it's your own. It's arrogant and snobbish to think otherwise.

It's why games have difficulty modes. If you want to torture youself, you play on Extreme ultimate insanity mode and you can. And the people who want to play on pink unicorn kitten mode can too.

That's a good thing. You cater for more people and your game is better because of it. I like a challenge so I played Mass effect on insanity. My sister only wanted the story so she played on easy. We were both able to experience the game and if it had only had one difficulty, we wouldn't have been. But we did. And that's a win for the developer.

krudler

I'm so glad I gave Dark Souls a chance, I got Demon's Souls on release and between playing other stuff on a backlog and mostly playing COD online I was more used to insta-gratification not much investment games. So I quit it after finding backtracking a chore.

Fast forward to Dark Souls which I only got a couple of months ago, and am playing it fully again (have started with new classes a few times to see how they fare but am seeing this one to the end) and loving it. I'd argue that yes, a few of the mechanics like humanity, hollowing and the like could be explained a little better but there isn't really that much to it, pvp online is where it gets more confusing and even that is explained but not in an overly clear way.

The supposed shortcomings like occasionaly dopey enemy AI and glitches/ using the game mechanics to your advantage is all part of it imo, and once you get it down it makes the game even more fun. Regarding the difficulty, it's refreshing to have a game that makes you stop and think about your decisions instead of charging in and then being sent back to a checkpoint a few seconds earlier. It's a game where you genuinely feel rewarded every time you overcome some tough enemy or boss and the more you progress the more you want to be challenged. If you'd shown me say the Ornstein & Smough fight or the Bed of Chaos boss back when I first started I would have went "ffuuuuuck that" but now it's those sections that you relish getting to again.

Corholio

Super Mario Galaxy 2. Improving on an incredible game was very tough, but Nintendo did it with aplomb. Having played Dark Souls also, I felt Galaxy just left that bit more sense of satisfaction when spending time playing the game. Very close though.

Magill

Kirby wrote: »

The better movie gives people the option of watching it in subtitles, in it's original audio without subs, in their own language, etc. If you only give one option, people are going to discount it and that isn't their fault....it's your own. It's arrogant and snobbish to think otherwise.

It's why games have difficulty modes. If you want to torture youself, you play on Extreme ultimate insanity mode and you can. And the people who want to play on pink unicorn kitten mode can too.

That's a good thing. You cater for more people and your game is better because of it. I like a challenge so I played Mass effect on insanity. My sister only wanted the story so she played on easy. We were both able to experience the game and if it had only had one difficulty, we wouldn't have been. But we did. And that's a win for the developer.

yeah.... but the OP asked what we, boards users, consider the best game of this generation.. not your sister or the typical call of duty loving casual. I was being sarcastic with my last reply because i thought it was obvious that its entirely subjective lol.

Kirby

Magill wrote: »

yeah.... but the OP asked what we, boards users, consider the best game of this generation.. not your sister or the typical call of duty loving casual. I was being sarcastic with my last reply because i thought it was obvious that its entirely subjective lol.

Which is fine. But when people start acting smarmy and claiming that "It's obvious and not even open to debate" they deserve a good talking to.

jacksie66

This post has been deleted.

anirishlad

Going to throw something a bit unbelievable out there.

I thought MAG was a brilliant online shooter. Sure it had its flaws but the huge domination games were brilliant. I was in Raven so I wasnt in the overpowered Sver faction :P

Grayditch

anirishlad wrote: »

Going to throw something a bit unbelievable out there.

I thought MAG was a brilliant online shooter. Sure it had its flaws but the huge domination games were brilliant. I was in Raven so I wasnt in the overpowered Sver faction :P

It's definitely my favourite shooter of the last gen. The more you put into that game, the more you got out of it. Some of the battles were incredibly epic.