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comment by user-inactivated
user-inactivated  ·  3605 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Why Kleinbl00 Is Wrong About Shadow of the Colossus - As Presented by Kleinbl00

SHUT UP KLEINBRO IT'S LITERALLY THE BEST GAME EVER.

DEADMAU5 IS THE BEST MUSICIAN EVER.

THE GODZILLA MOVIE COMING OUT THIS FRIDAY IS THE BEST MOVIE EVER.

WAIT, NO, OCARINA OF TIME IS THE BEST GAME EVER.

EVERYTHING NEIL GAIMAN HAS WRITTEN SUCKS.

WAIT, WAIT, NO, METAL GEAR SOLID IS DEFINITELY THE BEST GAME EVER.

This is the most fun I've had in a while.

Half an hour to wait for a game to be fun? How in God's name did you even finish Okami, that shit didn't get fun till maybe the ten hour mark. And even then they pull a fuck you, you're only halfway done moment, cause you know how great those moments are (I actually adore Okami I just like giving it and subsequently you lots of shit).





kleinbl00  ·  3605 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I like to think I don't use caps lock that much, but I'm probably deluding myself.

Obnoxious, over-the-top bombast aside, there is an interesting point here: You were perfectly willing to put up with being instantaneously clobbered several times over before figuring out a vague approach to survival in SotC, whereas Okami struck you as uninteresting until Hour 10. On the other hand, the obvious futility of SotC was an instant turn-off for me but the tedious side quests and incessant dialog were no barrier whatsoever.

Something I hoped you would notice - you can't play Wipeout without having your thumb on the throttle 100% of the time. It's just not possible to be competitive unless you're literally flooring it always. Which means if you want to look backward, you have to do a weird reach-around with your index finger. If you want to fire a weapon, you have to do a weirder reach-around with your index finger. The actual ergonomics are much worse than SotC but I just don't give a shit.

And I think it's the failure rate.

Let's be honest - dying in Okami is a bitch. You really have to mean it. It's one of those games where spasmodic flailing will allow you to win most battles eventually, but proper execution will win them rapidly. Likewise with Wipeout - you can bounce off the guard rails in short bus mode and clumsily fire every weapon you grab and you might just place. Employ actual strategy, though, and things start to go a lot better.

SotC? If you don't know what you're doing the minute you start doing it, you're dead and you start over. Attempts at experimentation are met with retrial. There's no real "puzzling it out" from a controller perspective - do it even vaguely wrong and it's over.

Another game we tried recently - Last Story for Wii. It's got a fairly complicated battle system, but it builds on you. If you don't understand how it works you can still smash things and win half the time. Over the length of the game, however, it starts to reveal the complexity and strategy necessary to really pull it off. It was dope.

Compare and contrast - the PS3 I inherited came loaded up with all sorts of games (most of them terrible). We were looking for something Last Story-like and discovered that we had a copy of Final Fantasy Tactics installed. You start playing that game and you discover an 80-page tutorial on how to work the battle system and what one, two- and three(!)-key combos do what.

That's as far as we got. Again, I want to play, not learn your mechanics.

I should probably fix the drive on that thing. It doesn't work. As such, we've been stuck with "that which is already on the machine" and "that which can be downloaded via PSN for free" (he's got a subscription and he left it hooked up).

Which means the last game I played on there was Tomb Raider. Talk about a shitshow.

thundara  ·  3605 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    Obnoxious, over-the-top bombast aside, there is an interesting point here: You were perfectly willing to put up with being instantaneously clobbered several times over before figuring out a vague approach to survival in SotC, whereas Okami struck you as uninteresting until Hour 10.

    SotC? If you don't know what you're doing the minute you start doing it, you're dead and you start over. Attempts at experimentation are met with retrial. There's no real "puzzling it out" from a controller perspective - do it even vaguely wrong and it's over.

Can I recommend a game to you?

"death" is a concept Valve devs talked a fair bit about in the Portal commentary. They point out that players enjoy a game when failure to solve a puzzle results in sliding back a few steps, rather than:

I have a friend that likes to bring up a little fact about Amensia: The Dark Descent:

The developers specifically designed the game to feel like you are about to be ripped apart by the monsters at any moment. However, actual mistakes by players are tolerated to a fairly wide degree. It's way more fun in the moment of the chase than when the beast finally catches you and sends you back to the loading screen / desktop.

Dark Souls gets off on deliberately ignoring this aspect of user experience, training players to be careful and learn a strategy while being stabbed, crushed, and burnt left right and center. You aren't even allowed to pause the game when you want a drink of water.

SotC felt like a middle ground between the two. Yeah, a colossus can crush you in one blow using a pillar a hundred times your size. But also as you dodge the swings, your character can tolerate the earthquakes as they stomp their feet. Once you hop on board, you can cling from the hairs on their back while they try to shake you off. You can even be tossed to the ground and live to tell the tale.

It's not the most polished of mechanics, but you gotta admit there's an appeal to be the ant crawling on the backs of these giants. To navigate their rocky torsos in the constant face of death. To bring them to their knees with but a puny stinger. To watch the life slip from the eyes of these elemental gods.

user-inactivated  ·  3605 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Your points are thorough and I actually agree with the grander point - the best games don't require mechanics to be shoved down your throat, and can be played at a higher or lower level depening on what you want.

You should check out extra credit, Klein. Series of videos that discuss these sorts of things much better than I could. Might be up your alley.

Also you like iitalics much more.