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Denver, 12:51 AM
Tue Dec 1
53 posts in the last 24 hours
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09/18/09
09/18/09
Yep, that's my situation as well. This happens with a lot of multiplayer games, for me at least. Where I feel like I'm invading someone else's turf. It feels like everyone knows how to play but me or that everything goes perfect for everyone else but me.
How did they get so good? They seem to know all the tricks and I never do. This happens to me with Halo3 & COD4 as well. Making it a frustrating experience. The only multiplayer shooter I'm good at is Gears of War.
09/18/09
09/18/09
09/18/09
I totally agree. I loved the original Red Faction on PS2, but the sequel was just a mess.
09/18/09
09/18/09
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.
09/01/09
09/01/09
09/01/09
09/01/09
09/01/09
09/02/09
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.
09/01/09
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.
09/01/09
09/01/09
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.
09/01/09
09/01/09
09/01/09
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.