2391 replies to this topic

[Arutha]

yes it does thats why it took me a year just to get halo3... and i'm just borrowing my cousins C0d4 but being that he lives with me i'm not sure if it's actually borrowing...

[Odon]

Shame on you. Wasting money on Halo3.
XD

[Stars]

I agree. I want to play Bioshock and Mass Effect (when it comes on PC)

Until then, re-playing my old GBA games is good fun, but I got a few new PS2 games, and my ever-present Genesis, NES, Master System and N64 are good time-wasters, too.

[Christophomicus]

And The Longest Journey is an interesting game. A bit too wordy at times, and so far as I can tell the much praised plot is fairly generic. But I've enjoyed what I've played so far.

If you're into Adventure Games, TLJ is like the holy bible, up with Syberia and Full Throttle and whatnot. You are right, it is a little wordy, but I love adventure games, so it was a pretty fantastic experience for me. You should play Dreamfall afterwards. It may be a sequel, but there really aren't that many links to the first (so I guess it doesn't matter which order you play it in... but you're already playing TLJ first I'm assuming? Jesus Christ. I need some sleep).

@Odon on the whole "no FMVs issue": I spotted one within the first ten-fifteen minutes of gameplay! [color=#000000;background:#000000;' onmouseover="this.style.color='#FFFFFF'" onmouseout="this.style.color='#000000']When Kaim cuts that super tank that crushes you up, and then the huge fireball/lava/magic spell comes down[/color]. Admittedly I haven't played much of the game, so that's really about all the detail I can give you. ._.

[Stars]

Mass Effect (when it comes on PC)

Until then, re-playing my old GBA games is good fun

^That.
Because of a damnable Pokemon-themed RP at Cy's forum, I've started playing FireRed again. >_>;;

I also won't be playing GHIII for a little while (unless I can borrow Lumberjack's or something) until I get my remastered replacement disc in the mail. Yay for that, despite the horrendous 3-4 week wait time.

[Arutha]

but I love the multi player it's so fun...


so yeah Halo3

[Odon]

Chris: Admittedly there are scenery FMVs but these all happen in the background. All the main characters are the low-res models. (High-res in-game models, whatever.)
You'll see what I mean as more of the story unfolds. D:

That being said : Castlevania SOTN is on xbox360 live arcade. . . SO I DOWNLOADED IT!
God I loves me some SOTN. Loves it.

[Stars]

That being said : Castlevania SOTN is on xbox360 live arcade. . . SO I DOWNLOADED IT!
God I loves me some SOTN. Loves it.

A good man you be.
How is the 360 Symphony, might I ask? I've been mightily curious about it since I first heard of it, but I haven't had any sort of opportunity to even try it out.

(and as godly as the original Symphony of the Night is, I may still find myself liking Aria of Sorrow a little bit more.... And for some god-known reason, Circle of the Moon more still.)

[Odon]

I actually like Circle of the Moon a whole lot. It was pretty nice to have a whip wielder that
wasn't screaming 'OH MY GOD I'M A BELMONT!' in it. And he was pretty damn cool looking too.
Hoorah for Nathan Graves!
SOTN on 360 is interesting so far. It's kinda hard to say 'oh dude this is different and that's different'
but there a little things that you catch onto that didn't make it into the first. (Like when you equip different cloaks
Alucard's cape changes color with every cape. Not just a few certain ones.) I'm not feeling the 'enhanced graphics'
so far but I haven't tried playing in the original yet. I mean. . .I just got it. Like... 20 minutes ago. XD

[Stars]

Yeah, one other thing I really liked about Circle of the Moon was that there wasn't one constant moving speed. Combining running into my movement greatly enhanced the gameplay for me, and so simply! Running is just a simple addition that made a huge impact for me. Sure, his walking speed was painfully slow, but once I got the Run Boots, it was aaallll good.
The DSS Card system was very good, too. I loved that one as well.
Nathan himself could have standed to have some more frames in his moving animation, but thinking back, this was a bloody GBA Killer Ap. One of the first on the fledgling system. That Konami was able to pack this much into it so early is quite a marvel on its own.
Oh yeah, and wall jumping. That was about the single coolest part of the game. It increased your mobility highly, but required a bit of timing and skill to pull off properly, not like simplistic double-jumping.

Yeah, I really liked Circle of the Moon.... Entirely too much....





Hm, so the 360 version of Symphony is what the PSX version could have been, and little else? That's still cool.... I mean, I won't have to worry about scratching my disk (again) and no loading time.... (right?) and all sorts of pluses.
(and yet, somehow, Portrait of Ruin in Richter mode on Hard will always call me back at the oddest of times....)

[Odon]

That's a good way to put it. And no. No loading times.

[Vicious Parker]

I have to completely disagree with you about FF7's FMV sequences. While at the time they were *ahem* "so awesome good looking cool power times!" (to paraphrase), they seem to be proof perfect that graphical consistency is just as important, if not more so, than graphical prowess.

For instance, just how many different faces did the main characters have? Let's see... One for the menu (a face pic), one for walking around, one for battles, and one for FMVs. Yeah, total consistency. Buuut, that was back in the 32/64 bit era when 3D graphics still needed....... work. (Honestly, as much as I used to love games in that era, I can hardly play many anymore).

When using real-time graphics for cinematic sequences, there usually isn't a transition between cutscene and gameplay, resulting in a much more consistent experience. Of course, there are always things than real time can't handle so well, and there's nothing wrong with rendering a video for such a thing. But I fail to see how FMV could be considered better than real-time, especially with modern graphics the way they are.

Of course, the problem could just be that the guys who made the game you're talking about just aren't good "movie" directors. Sakaguchi proved that one a few years ago with that Spirits Within debacle.

[Stars]

I just like sprites better.

[Vicious Parker]

I just like sprites better.

On that subject, why is it that I can usually tolerate a JRPG in 2D (and even love a few), but loathe all 3D JRPGs? </rhetorical question>

[Odon]

But I fail to see how FMV could be considered better than real-time, especially with modern graphics the way they are.

Easily. I want a reward. I want to kick back and watch something take off that I've set into motion. You just don't get that feeling when you don't have a damn fine movie sequence, and yes, I'll take the excuse that their movie director sucks. I might be able to take the in-game cut-scenes if the cinematography was better. MIGHT.

[Stars]

Yeah, FF9 was a great pleasure to get to the FMV's. Your point is a good one, Odon.
(though FF9 is one of few modern FF's that I can stand... Though the very first on NES and Tactics are by and large my favourites.)

[Vicious Parker]

Interesting. What you're getting in to has more to do with how the game rewards you rather than how the cinematics are presented. Let me explore this a little further...

Here are some games with... generally interesting stories that have real-time cutscenes:

Beyond Good and Evil
Psychonauts
Resident Evil 4
Any 3D Zelda
(sorry, can't think of anymore, though they obviously exist)

And here are a few with non-traditional cutscenes, or no cutscenes at all:

The Half-Life games
Portal
Deus Ex
Morrowind
Almost every Metroid Game
Bioshock
STALKER
etc. etc.
(interestingly enough, a number of games from this list are among my top 5 or 10 favorite games)


In both instances, it is usually the quality of the narrative, be it voice-acted or written, that carries the story. Not the graphical quality of the story sequences. Of course, we could argue about which games have better quality narrative, but eh. That's too much for right now. What I find more interesting, though, is your comparison of FMV sequences to reward. I may even try to open up an entirely new topic on that subject.

What do you other types consider "rewarding" when playing video games?

And Odon, do you still play 2D games? What do you consider rewarding in them? And how do you view cutscenes from them?

[Stars]

Most often, what I find rewarding from a game is pure undiluted fun value.
This is why, as cool as all the Castlevania's are, somehow, Katamari Damacy will be higher on my liking list. The pure fun value of Katamari out-weighs nearly everything else in the field.



Though, a secondary reward, is overcoming a challenge. This is one reason I like a lot of older games, as they generally have more challenge factor than more modern games. (of course, there are exceptions, but compare the difficult game list of the NES to the PS2. More people will say "That NES game was hard!" over the latter.)
This is one mixed bag with me and RPG's.... I tend to blow through things really quickly, purposefully keeping myself under-leveled, so when battles come, I just just push the A button repeatedly and win, I have to think, balance fight and magic, to gain victory. (though FF3 NES was one exception in that it was nigh-impossible to over level, it was still damn fucking difficult.)


But, in some cases, like FF9, I'll state a very memorable case. I just got into Ramuh's little puzzle garden thing, and that kept me busy a good while... I usually fall flat on puzzle parts of games, and while this wasn't much a puzzle, it still kept me busy for a while. Once I got through it, I saw [color=#000000;background:#000000;' onmouseover="this.style.color='#FFFFFF'" onmouseout="this.style.color='#000000']fucking Lindblum was it? Get obliterated.[/color] THAT to me was rewarding.

[Kamau]

While I was gone, I beat Professor Layton and the Curious Village. I recommend it to all my friends, all my friends' parents, and basically everyone I know. Play it. Now.

And there's gonna be a sequel!

(Oh, also working on Advance Wars.)

[Arutha]

BK Pocket Bike Racer....