Main Menu

Last game played...

Started by Keef Monkey, 11 June, 2011, 09:35:35 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

radiator

Everyone always talks about Bayonetta as if the fighting is really elegant and balletic, but its just not. It's loud, hectic and disorienting. The characters are so big and absurdly over-designed they all just blur into one. There just seems to be boss after boss with no kind of discernable structure to the levels. I can't help but feel like I'm missing something.

Played a bit of Vanquish which I'm finding equally underwhelming, and kind of annoying also (whittling down a boss' health painfully slowly to the point of having to constantly scavenge around for fresh ammo isn't much fun).

Both of these games are supposed to be amazing - proper gamers games. But both just seem very average so far.

Also: fuck QTEs.

shaolin_monkey

I enjoyed Vanquish, though it took me a while to realise how tactical it is, and how smoothly you could hop from one move to another.  Throwing the lit cigarette to distract enemies was a nice touch.  I made it to the end without knowing all this stuff, and still quite enjoyed it as a brash sci-fi shooter, with some nice set pieces, and lovely graphics. 

It's quite short though, and I think the whole point of it was to play through a couple of times using different styles and techniques.  I haven't the patience for that really - once the journey is over, it's over.  There are too many other games waiting to be played.


radiator

QuoteIt's quite short though, and I think the whole point of it was to play through a couple of times using different styles and techniques.  I haven't the patience for that really - once the journey is over, it's over.  There are too many other games waiting to be played.

I'm the complete opposite - I'd much rather play one very good, short game over and over on escalating difficulties and really master it and wring every last drop out of it - go for some achievements (within reason), get 100% scores etc - than play five mediocre games for the 'journey' in the same amount of time. Not because I'm tight or can't afford more games, I just get very little satisfaction from breezing through games on an easy difficulty, then moving on to the next. It depends on the game, but I find I very rarely get a good handle on a game or really get to familiarise myself with its environments from a single play through.

QuoteI enjoyed Vanquish, though it took me a while to realise how tactical it is, and how smoothly you could hop from one move to another.  Throwing the lit cigarette to distract enemies was a nice touch.

That's the sort of thing that attracted me to Bayonetta and Vanquish - I wanted something with really tight combat that I could really get my teeth into, and tackle on the harder modes. And that's why I'll persevere with them.

It irks me somewhat when people plough through the campaign mode of a game like Halo or Gears of War on easy or normal difficulty, as fast as they can, and then slate them for being 'boring'. Those kind of games only really come alive on the harder settings.

JamesC

Persevere with Vanquish - those big boss robots can be taken down really quickly with the correct technique.

For the first one - target the eye above the large gun using the machine gun turrets on the high wall. Make sure you dodge the attacks and with practice you can get the boss to the 'transforming stage' after two attacks from the gun turret (if your aim's good). 
Once he transforms, run around underneath him targeting one weak joint at a time with either the heavy machine gun or a rocket launcher if you know you can hit it. You then target the chest piece each time the boss falls.

When I was playing this game quite often I could do the first big boss in a couple of minutes.

There is a fairly steep learning curve at this point but once you've mastered the tactics of picking the correct weapon and dodging into bullet time at the correct points it's incredibly satisfying.

radiator

Thanks for the tips.

You're right about the learning curve. I also feel very hemmed in - I didn't realise you could go down to ground level.

JamesC

Quote from: radiator on 08 August, 2013, 12:29:51 PM
Thanks for the tips.

You're right about the learning curve. I also feel very hemmed in - I didn't realise you could go down to ground level.

Yep, you can run around underneath him. The best piece of advice I could give about this game is to keep moving -the game's all about your speed advantage over your opponents. If you try to stay behind a single cover position you'll die lots!

The Enigmatic Dr X

Just rage uninstalled Football Manager 2005

70 + day of play (real time). Wolves had won 18 European cups in a row (and every domestic cup for 20 years). Top ranked manager in the world. £500m in the bank. A team of world class players.

And the board fired me for issuing a warning to a player after a red card.
Lock up your spoons!

Professor Bear

Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse - the central game engine and gameplay are sound and I had no complaints beyond that it's unexceptional even though it is a game where you fight a paraplegic street gang called the Crips (who use AK47s as crutches) and Adam West on a jetpack shooting cats at you with a crossbow.  It's a solid third person shooter from which you'll get 5-6 hours' worth of entertainment, and probably more from the multiplayer, which is pretty decent and doesn't do that stupid thing where it's tiny little displays for each player in opposite corners of the screen, as you get the screen cut in two down the middle so you can actually tell what you're doing.  The platforming bits are probably the weakest part of it, but otherwise it's a decent laid-back playing experience with the odd decent joke that fans of the show will likely appreciate.  The level where you go on a shooting spree in an Amish village is poor taste, though.

Spy Hunter - on the Vita.  Nothing spectacular, but solid racey shooty gaming.  I recall playing the PS2 version and it had third person sections where you got out of the car to run around doing the Rock Bottom on terrorist scum, but this is a vehicle-only affair where the graphics are sparse and there's not a great variety of levels even though your car switches quickly between car/boat and 4X4 truck as you travel through them and thus see lots of different ways of getting from A to B in the same three locations.  The levels are over pretty quickly and I think if you spend more than five minutes in one you automatically fail it, which would be a nice way to keep things brisk were it not for the lengthy loading times, lengthy starting sequences, unskippable cut scenes, and constant unwelcome chatter from your pit crew slowing things down on top of an annoyingly long autosave/reload time when you try to restart a level after the occasional baffling death, as there's an odd glitch where your car can spin around 180 degrees on a whim while you're trying to outrun something - or even get caught in scenery - and there's no "wrong way" indicator to tell you this has happened like would be handy if the 180 thing occurs during a cut scene.
Still enjoyed it, all the same.

Professor Bear

Saints Row 4.  "More of the same" syndrome is avoided - despite the fictional Steelport setting being identical to the last one - by way of making it a superhero game this time out.  There are thousands of collectables, hundreds of sub-missions involving driving, brawling, rampages, races and telekinetic fights, and you can ignore all that and just use the superpowers the game gives you by default to play the main quests.  The gimmick is that you don't have superpowers, you only have them in a simulation of the city created by aliens who keep you in a pod Matrix-style, yet there are surprisingly few Matrix references.
It's jarring to not be playing a GTA-style game anymore because once you can run faster than cars obviously you stop jacking cars altogether, and being knowing about QTE scenes to the point that you have to jam buttons to make your character pick up a newspaper or eat some pancakes doesn't change the fact that they're still QTEs and I hate them, but the player character seems remarkably accurate at judging my mood because as soon as I saw another 1980s videogame reference (a top-down tank shooter section), he said "Ach - fucking 80s."  All the same, the easily-playable nature of the game mechanics means that soon, like me, you will realise that you did not know that you needed a game to exist where you could be a fireball-throwing werewolf in an Evel Knieval costume running vertically up a building fistfighting aliens, but that is the world in which we now live, and we are better as people because of it.
It is fun on a stick and well worth your time unless you are one of those grumps who insists their GTA playing experiences be as slow, dull and "gritty" as possible.

shaolin_monkey

Monster Hunter Ultimate - Wii U. This game gets rid if all the 'choose your own adventure' type stuff of Draginsge and Skyrim, and gets right on down to killing dinos to carve their skins and other bodily items so you can build better armour and weapons, thus being able to wipe out bigger and nastier monsters.

It's a mix of gathering and grinding, with some light comuc interludes as you interact with characters at your base village. The monsters get bigger, meaner and more complex to take down. Tactics and strategy are essential; gauging not just the creature and its behaviour, but also the environment you find it in, is key to survival. 

It's great solo, but it's real strength lies in online multiplayer, where you can go hunting with three pals.  There's so many weapons and armour variations it's easy to get four very different skillsets in the squad. Taking advantage of these, and working as a team is the order of the day. It's incredibly satisfying when you and your pals work hard for up to an hour to bag one behemoth - it's final roar as it topples to the ground is often drowned out by your cheering chums over the Wii U game pad speakers.

Great fun, and one of my gaming obsessions at the mo.

Goaty


Aliens: Colonial Marines - it was £3.74 on Steam till 6pm tonight, as I loved Aliens, this is sequel to the film, and enjoy the opening aboard the Sulaco. There was nice reference to [spoiler]Alien3[/spoiler].

JudgeE1M1RT

I last played Alien Trilogy for the PS1. It's basically Duke Nukem in the Alien universe and is hard as nails.

sheldipez

I never forget the ultimate cheat password: Igotpinkacidbootson ! Great game back in the day. Can't imagine it's aged well.

Professor Bear

If you can find it, Alien Resurrection on PS1 holds up surprisingly well despite the dated visuals.

Finished Saints Row 4, the final level [spoiler]sees you put on the Iron Man armor to fight Megatron,[/spoiler] so it is very silly and you probably wouldn't like it.  Me, I thought it was fucking great.

Castle of Illusion, a HD update of the decades-old Megadrive game, and it is pretty good despite being a side-scrolling platformer and thus aimed at squares from the distant past.  Great visuals and the narrator is a nice touch, too.

JudgeE1M1RT

Quote from: Professor James T Bear on 08 September, 2013, 10:08:23 PM


Finished Saints Row 4, the final level [spoiler]sees you put on the Iron Man armor to fight Megatron,[/spoiler] so it is very silly and you probably wouldn't like it.  Me, I thought it was fucking great.


I've played Saints Row IV, but it wasn't the silliness that got me, it was the fact that its a repackaged Saints Row III that put me off it.

Anyway, just finished Another World (or Out of this World) a few moments ago. Its shorter than I remember it being. :)