Weturday

[Dog Pants]

What ho, bummers!

Today is a lazy day. I have nothing to do except go to the shop, and I've already done that. I returned with chips. Already I have been playing Tanks, I'll probably have a little tootle on the wonderfully-simple-but-actually-quite-hard Solar 2, and maybe I'll do something productive.

Here's some controversy for the day: In future I'm going to avoid games which are also released on console. It's not written in stone, but after a long list of disappointing AAA titles which have suffered because of console conventions (UI, controls, cover mechanics, etc) I'm not going to be pre-ordering without playing first. I might buy later, but only once I've heard what 5punkers have to say and read reviews, and even then probably in a sale. Most of those are pretty shrewd ideas all round, but comparing a list of games I've been impressed with recently (FTL, Binding of Isaac, Warlock, WoT) vs ones I've been pretty disappointed in (BF3, ME3, Deus Ex, Skyrim), and I can see a trend of PC exclusives on the good side. Admittedly many are also indie games, and I know I'm feeling a pull towards them at the moment, but then that's probably no coincidence either.

[Joose]

ones I've been pretty disappointed in (BF3, ME3, Deus Ex, Skyrim)

Bwuh? Apart from the ending, ME3 was one of my favourite games of recent years. Apart from the ending, the same goes for Deus Ex. I had great fun with Skyrim too, although like all TES games the balance went wonky for me by the end. Huh. Developers really need to spend more time on how games end.

My point is, the mainstream games you have listed (apart from BF3, but I don't really like the BF games in general) were highlights in gaming for me. Whereas the two of the other games you mentioned that I have played (Binding of Isaac and Warlock) didn't really do much for me at all. Binding of Isaac is...well, its perfectly fine as far as simple arcade shooty games go but I don't really see what all the fuss is about. Its OK, but that's all. Warlock actually disappointed me rather badly: it started off all right but quickly turned a little over simple to me. There's a bunch of stuff in there that I haven't done, but as I can now pretty easily beat the game without doing any of them, what's the point? It really is just Civ with everything but the combat removed. Frankly, I would rather play Civ.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more of a terrible idea your suggestion sounds. If I had done the same, I would also have missed out on Arkham City and Saints row, both of which have the rare privilege of being games that I have played well past the completion of the main story. You would have discounted Portal 2 as well.

I'm not sure you have really thought it through. If you have and it works for you then all well and good, but I think I will stick to judging games individually rather than using some slightly arbitrary blanket decision.

[Dog Pants]

As I said, it's not a set in stone rule, but it is a guideline to stop me buying more expensive games I don't enjoy. I didn't get anywhere close to completing any of the games you've balked at there, I just got bored of them and stopped playing. Saint's Row 3 was surprisingly enjoyable actually, but I still got nowhere near completing it. I think a lot of it is about expectations - I don't expect much more than a quick blast with a cheap indie game, so while I might have played Binding of Isaac for only half the time I've played ME3 I feel as though I've had my value for money. Obviously there's a large element of personal preference too, horses for courses. Maybe I'm just hitting what I saw described earlier today as the gamenopause (don't say it out loud), but whatever the reasons I'm not enjoying the big shiny action games nearly as much as I used to, I just get bored of them so quickly.

[HereComesPete]

Going to have to agree with Joose on this one DP. Yes the AAA shooters have been wank enough we haven't even looked at them or disappointing in the extreme. But that just doesn't apply to most other cross platform releases.

I suspect it's not a case of simple boredom, if you're snatching at chances to play games then big, expensive and above all long games tend to need you to settle in for a while like a film does. It gets you immersed and drags you along. Playing it in short stints with distractions thrown in means you will never truly experience the game. Indie games offer you doses of high speed, high fun, weird or just plain hilarious fun and they do it in such a way as you can pick them up and put them down far easier. This is reinforced by your own expectation that you state above and the idea of value for money. As someone who can happily sink a few hundred hours into something like skyrim, me3, just cause or whatever, that's value for money to me. But I see it as you don't have that time and move between games far faster, another thing that makes the Indie game appeal to you.

[Dog Pants]

You could be right, and I have considered that. But when I think of Skyrim I think of tedious combat in similar looking environments. When I think of ME3 I think of tedious shooting of similar looking bad guys. Maybe if I could concentrate on the games more the combat would be more tolerable because I was getting into the story, but it doesn't alter the fact that the basic mechanics are something I don't enjoy in both cases.

[Dog Pants]

Something I've just thought of; it seems to apply more to single player games. Even BF3, which I wasn't hugely impressed with, is enjoyable enough in multiplayer. I think it would have been better if it stuck more to its PC roots though.

[HereComesPete]

Something I've just thought of; it seems to apply more to single player games. Even BF3, which I wasn't hugely impressed with, is enjoyable enough in multiplayer. I think it would have been better if it stuck more to its PC roots though.

That's because of our sparkling wit and hilarious repartee upon the speaker of teams. It helps me to gloss over the fact that I think pretty much every shootan or fightan game has something within its mechanics that is really fucking annoying and instead concentrate on chopping limbs off or ventilating craniums. I find a lot of single player games rely on the story to cover what is basically a grinding of fights between point A and point B. Point B being the next cut scene or fmv or new weapon for boss etc.

If you care about the chick you're banging and the dirty alien bastards are attacking the chicks home planet then you will descend upon them with great vengeance and furious anger. If you can't remember her name because the last time you played the game was a week ago for 20 minutes then you probably don't give a shit about her or her people and realise half way through another crates and corridors fight that it all looks the bloody same. A lack of time strips the veneer away. The basic mechanics of Indie games are generally better polished and have twists in to keep you entertained, mainly because they play a bigger part in the story. Excellent case in point is Stacking from Double Fine, the mix of story and mechanic to provide a richer experience allows the game to deliver a very nice package.

[Dog Pants]

Oh fuck, I hope Stacking doesn't appear in the Steam sale.

[deject]

Oh fuck, I hope Stacking doesn't appear in the Steam sale.

It was already on sale for a good amount (I think 75% off) which is why I have it but OMG STACKING!!!!!!!!!

Also, I think multiplatform is just necessarily the future of big name games. No one is making AAA PC-only games anymore, mostly because you can sell a few million more copies if you put it out on Xbox. There is still plenty of amazing stuff being made on PC, which is never going away but to have no multiplatform games as a general rule seems rather misguided. How about a no terrible port jobs rule instead?

ME3 and BF3 are some amazing game in my opinion, ones that I have put in a rather massive amount of time into (Battlelog says I have almost 145 hours). And sure both ME3 and Deus Ex: Human Resources Manager had endings that were just kinda but at the same time 5-10 minutes at the very end of 20-40 hours of amazing brilliance is far from enough to make me sour on them entirely.

[Dog Pants]

I didn't get anywhere close to the endings of ME3 or Deus Ex, so it certainly wasn't the endings which put me off. Actually, it's a little unfair of me on ME3 - I do still want to play it and finish it, it's just that I've always got something more interesting to be doing. I did have a 'no bad console ports' rule, but spotting them doesn't seem to be very easy, so I've adopted the 'wait for reviewers to spot the good ports from the bad ones' guideline.

Anyway, what was Nuclear Dawn like last night? I don't know anything about this game. Also, anyone up for some games tonight, since I missed my fix last night?

[deject]

If you quit ME3 before making it through the Tuchanka section, you're doing yourself a disservice.

[Dog Pants]

That's Wrex's home world isn't it? I did that. There was a nice little bit of story and a moderately easy defender. I think the most recent bit I did was the psychic college space station. That was a real grind. The thing I love most about the ME series is the interaction between the characters and races. In ME3 when I get conversation options of "HELP EARTH NOW PLZ" or "I can sympathise that your people are dying, but HELP EARTH LATER PLZ", I feel like my Shepard is being railroaded into the kind of personality who says PLZ, when I'd like the option of saying to them "Fuck Earth, fuck your homeworld, if we don't start fighting together with a grand plan they'll all be dead, just in a different order". I do like how Wrex is pissed off at me, can't say I blame him (and I made the right decision you sulky lizard bastard).

[friznit]

I'm with DP on this one - in fact that's been my approach to buying games for some time now. I never even played BF3, Deus Ex 3 or ME3 simply because they were more of the same generic console formula that I got fed with Skyrim. Sure, I'd probably play them through to completion eventually, but only because I spent monies and felt I had to (as I am currently doing with the Witcher 2 which I bought in the Christmas 2011 sale - go figure). I do miss the PC enabled mouse driven interface though - consoles may not be the worst thing to arrive since Blur covers, but console controllers most certainly are the spawn of satan.

[tandino]

Gaems is gaems as far as I'm concerned. Since being wedded, living with woman (again) and getting a "proper" job, I don't have as much time as I used to to jump in to games. Mrs Tandini is happy to let me game away as much or as little as I want/need within reason and I end up having to self-regulate a little. On the whole, I prefer the act of PC gaming (mods, controls, flexibility), but my XBox still gets a look in of a quiet Saturday morning. I hated Skyrim's interface at first, but mods happened on day one or two and it was fine again. I played Deus Ex and Mass Effect 3 on my XBox, but mostly it's used as a bit of a streaming media platform more than a games device. I still give a lot of time to my DS when I can too.

This is however just, like, my opinion, man.