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Denver, 9:45 AM
Wed Dec 2
62 posts in the last 24 hours
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Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
09/01/09
I just don't understand why no one has really nailed this concept yet. When it comes to open-world games, we'd rather be the ones who create the stories, not the devs. The only game that has really taken to this concept is Dwarf Fortress, but the learning curve for that game is more like a brick wall to me.
09/01/09
Anyways enough rambling. Going more on the topic, I think what you said about Godfather 2 was what I was initially interested in but somehow after giving it a rental shot it was just not something I could give more time to just because I couldn't justify a timesink into a mediocre experience when I'm not a dev and need time for other things but yeah it's world was alive and drawing but at the same time so aloof and distant, like it's your world but only not yours even worse than in real life.
09/01/09
I was telling him how awesome it was that i was in a constant struggle to keep my empire growing and that i felt like things i did mattered in the game. I never had the urge to just run around being ridiculous and killing people like i do in GTA. That's something i like to do in GTA but in The Godfather 2 i was more concerned about making my family more powerful.
I was also telling him that GTA could learn a thing or two from this game. It's weird that this article popped up on here today.
09/01/09
And at the same time, I think I apprciate a bad game when it does big things well. A lot of the games I like are generally disliked or have obvious technical features- Disaster Report, for example, is about escaping the man-made Stiver Island in the wake of aftershocks of an earthquake. It's something of a Survival Emergency game, and not too different from the upcoming "I Am Alive". And it has frame rate isues, clunky controls, and is generally ugly. The voice acting is terrible and the character's lines are pretty bad.
BUT! It has a dynamic story(with 7 endings), very creative design going for it, a wonderful mystery, a cool inventory system(think Cache from RE4 or whatever, but in 4 dimensions), and nice gameplay design. So despite it being clunky and slow and ugly and often-times trial and error, it's still pretty great!
So now I'm interested in Godfather 2, if only to see how well it does this, and if that's, for me, good enough to trump the rest of the problems.
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09/01/09
Meaning put away until they and Activision next meet in public....
09/01/09
"the game's graphics primitive and plain."
Mr. Totilo, please explain. I didn't play the game myself, but based on the imagery shown it doesn't look plain at all for the timeframe they are hitting. Of all the issues with the game you mention, this seemed the most vague and subjective, so maybe someone can elaborate on some specifics.
09/01/09
There were also the clunky controls, the god-awful checkpoint system, and the complete lack of creativity in most of the missions. It was a complete rinse-and-repeat affair, and by the time I finished the painful "I Need Your Clothes, Your Boots, and Your Motorcycle" mission, I put it away to wait for the mood to strike me again.
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09/01/09
Why GTA IV didn't do it that way is a mystery. "I Need Your Clothes..." really, really needed that old checkpoint system.
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09/01/09
"the swelling revolution that brings its citizens to take up arms against the police authority feels no more the product of your actions than a river's current feels determined by how you swipe your hand through the water."
"Like a good New Yorker, Rockstar's fake New York barely bats an eye at what you're doing in it."
Your use of metaphor, analogy and simile is making me tear up. Anthropomorphism? Kid, I'm giving you an A.
Edit: This is also a terrific idea for an occasional feature. And it's too bad every game doesn't get to be what it wants to be.
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Of course the sad part is that even with that fault, it's a much more enjoyable game than GTA4 for the most part. GTA was about raw unbridled fun in a big world. Then 4 came out with it's idiotic story (yeah, I said it, fuck you art house types who think it's brilliant) and bland world. Maybe I just outgrew the series or something, but I found myself playing GTA4 to the end in constant hopes that I was still building up to the awesome stuff. Didn't help that half of the game is essentially tutorial. I mean really, I'm 10 hours in and you're STILL trying to teach me how to do stuff? Focus Rockstar. Make your game fun and we'll be there.
09/01/09
I like the idea of looking at mediocre/bad games to find good idea's. There have been plenty over the years.
Haze jumps to mind because most of the idea's were great and at the time seemed more unique but it was badly executed and thus the idea's never reached their peak.
09/01/09
Off the top of my head, Prey had some of THE BEST set pieces of any game in this generation. Their manipulation of gravity, points of view, 2 different "realities", and awesome weapons, made for some of the best experiences I'd had in a while. I'm still surprised that no other game with more resources has tried to emulate what they did there.
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09/01/09
I even recall a rousing debate (read: flame war) over whether or not the next game in the series should have limited fuel for cars, along with working gas stations.
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09/01/09
See, I have just the opposite opinion. Rockstar may have been going for realism, but it just isn't.
There are no guys running around blowing up police helicopters with missiles, or driving nuts around the city wiping out pedestrians. Sure there is a cop mechanic where you get busted, but there is not really much of a price that you pay since the game is centered around your one character.
I bring up the uncanny divide, because it is one of the situations where the city feels real, but the actions feel out of place. I feel like as soon as I gun down those first 3 cops I shouldn't be able to show my face in town. I could be terrorizing the town, but it would be a constant manhunt to bring me down. But GTA doesn't do that.
I think that is one of the reasons that I loved Crackdown so much more than GTA. They sent the city completely over the top. There is no uncanny divide, it is pure fiction, and it was more believable because of it.
09/01/09
Going to the gym? Pumping gas? Taking care of my whiny bitch of a cousin? Not so much.
"Hey cousin, want to go see some beeg American tee-tees?"
09/01/09
Just as a person can enjoy a rousing "brain-dead" summer blockbuster movie they can also enjoy a stimulating and thought provoking art house film. It's not entirely a subjective claim of tastes but moreso moods. Am I in the mood to get down and gritty, skulking through alley ways hugging my limited ammo hoping for an escape vehicle, or do I want to load up with an arsenal, commandeer the nearest military chopper and rain death down upon hapless people while singing away to 'Girls Just Want To Have Fun'? Depends, entirely, on how I'm feeling at that given moment.
All too often though people are bereft of the thought that, just perhaps, other people enjoy differing things, thus ensues the arguments. The Grand Theft Auto IV style can sit happily side by side with the Saints Row 2 formula. The world would be a better place if people just accepted that it can be as fun knee capping someone and stalking after them into a ditch while they plead for their life as it is to parachute in on some yakuza dressed as a clown and wielding midgets.
Hell, I'm all for the limited fuel in a vehicle concept. Just as long as I have other games to counter balance that by having fuel that only comes in the "turbo" variety.
09/01/09
I absolutely loved San Andreas, it didn't take itself too seriously and was really great fun to play as a result. GTA IV just sucked, it was bland, it had the most boring main character of any game I've ever played, and it bored me from beginning to the point I gave up playing (around the point you reach Algonquin). I guess Rockstar managed to get their heads too far up their own asses to realise what made the GTA games so great.
Having said this.. GTA IV Multiplayer is really quite fun, I can ignore the depressing visuals when playing with friends, and there's just so much to do. You can literally make your own fun. I pretty much never play the pre-set game modes.. We always make up our own in Free-mode.
09/01/09
And I'm kind of an anomaly in that I found the 'realism' in The Getaway to be really fun.
I didn't even mind the shitty controls 'cause I found myself too drawn in to the story and what was happening around the characters. With GTA it was strange cause it went for a 'mature' route and failed completely I guess. I found myself not caring for Niko Bellics whiny ass or his drongo of a cousin Roman.
In fact I think I hated almost all the characters except Little Jacob. It seemed like R* was confused about whether they wanted to be mature GTA or a silly GTA.
On one hand you have Niko talking about Roman's mother bieng raped and killed on the other you have the stereotypically campy gay dude. Or Kate screaming about her shitty family and Packie being a super drug fiend. Ummm.... What was the topic again?
Anyway I think pseudo-realism can be fun you just got to know how to balance it.
Far Cry2 is one game I think did this relatively well. Killzone 2 is a kick ass psuedo-realistic sci-fi romp. It can be done people. BELIEVE!
/end incoherent wall of text
09/01/09