Games: Rate and Discuss

kupocake said:
The fact of the matter is that Teidemann is in possession of the marker and he's the first identifiable antagonist in the game. He doesn't 'just happen to be in the same place'. Yes, he's controlled by the marker, but he exists as a surrogate antagonist because the marker just sits there. Obviously. 'Over-arching plot' was probably the wrong phrasing, since it implies it's the only thread throughout the game. But it's undeniably the only thing unique to the sequel, that sets it apart from the (not especially well explored) arc of the series that you mention.

Perhaps I'm more irked that he exists at all. He's just there to articulate some banal point about the marker we've heard already, and he's there persistently.
Click to expand...

You say the the Marker just sits there and that he fills the role of the antagonist because the Marker cannot but that's not the case. You spend the entire game battling the marker in the form of Nicole who is much more of an antagonist than Teidemann ever is in the game and what the game is completely focused on throughout. The real battle of the game is against the Markers infection of Isaacs mind and how it's using him throughout to bring about Convergence. Tiedemann may be an enemy of Isaac but it certainly can't be said the whole game's story hinges on chasing him, it's never at any point Isaacs objective to find Teidemann but throughout he continues to battle his mind, Nicole and the Marker.
The story is never about chasing down the "bad guy military space megalomaniac".
 
kupocake said:
Sorry, I think it is. *shrugs*
Click to expand...

But..........you don't actually chase him. At all. Ever. If anything he is chasing Isaac while Isaac couldn't be less interested in him. He's like an annoying little pimple on Isaacs butt. :D
 
I always thought Teidemann was a bit underdeveloped. He kind of takes the place of a Dr. Breen-like antagonist who attempts to hinder the player with his VIP powers, but that's it. A few audio and text diaries near the end give him a bit more of a personality but by then it is too little, too late. He's a step up from that stereotypical evil Russian from DS1, though.

I dunno, maybe Visceral should make some DLC based on an EarthGov officer trapped on the Sprawl. We've never really seen things from things from their perspective yet.
 
Hes just a small part of the problem really

He hinders Isaac from destroying the large marker because he is stupid enough to not see it as what it really is, a plague, a deadly plague. The markers themselves are the real enemy, they are shown to be calculating and can somewhat reproduce
 
Oh, there's another self-important and banal human antagonist in the second game? I can barely sit through DS1's goon as it is - the dialogue is just too painful. It's not the doctor patronising you about the Necromorphs, it's the developers. Every attempt they make to instill a sense of fear and awe in you regarding the enemy takes you one great stride in the opposite direction. Lazy, asinine writing.
 
the story of DS2 was definitely was one its weakest parts and in some ways was worse than the first's.

The main problem i have above the other complaints is that the marker is just a lazy macguffin from the writers that just does whatever is seemingly convenient for the story. I hoped DS2 would shed more light on the mysteries of the marker mentioned from the first game but by the end of DS2 we are at the same status quo as the end of the first. Except for
we know there are more manufactured marker sites
 
AHA-Lambda said:
the story of DS2 was definitely was one its weakest parts and in some ways was worse than the first's.

The main problem i have above the other complaints is that the marker is just a lazy macguffin from the writers that just does whatever is seemingly convenient for the story. I hoped DS2 would shed more light on the mysteries of the marker mentioned from the first game but by the end of DS2 we are at the same status quo as the end of the first. Except for
we know there are more manufactured marker sites
Click to expand...

We also learnt that Markers are not as friendly as they seemed in the first game and that they purposefully set out to create an outbreak rather than stop it as it appeared in the first game.
 
yeah that just confused me actually, their behaviour is now just contradictory o_O
 
AHA-Lambda said:
yeah that just confused me actually, their behaviour is now just contradictory o_O
Click to expand...

Actually not if you consider the first Marker had already had Convergence and wanted to be "made whole" with it's hive mind, whereas the Isaac Marker wanted to trigger it's Convergence and absorb it's creators. The Marker in both games was acting out of self interest.
 
ok the million dollar question:

what in blue balls is convergence? O__o

I didnt have a clue what that meant even when it was said in the game =/
 
AHA-Lambda said:
ok the million dollar question:

what in blue balls is convergence? O__o

I didnt have a clue what that meant even when it was said in the game =/
Click to expand...

Well it's not spoon fed in the games story but the common fanbase belief so far is that convergence is:

The Marker reconstructing the standard Necromorphs DNA into a Hive Mind, which also explains why the Ubermorph (Regenerator) at the end looks like a small Hive Mind and also explains why the Marker was pulling all the Necro's into it. As for why it does all this we still don't know yet.
 
It's not the first time Stemot has chosen to be a crazy fanboy about something rubbish!
 
Samon Fish said:
Oh, there's another self-important and banal human antagonist in the second game? I can barely sit through DS1's goon as it is - the dialogue is just too painful. It's not the doctor patronising you about the Necromorphs, it's the developers. Every attempt they make to instill a sense of fear and awe in you regarding the enemy takes you one great stride in the opposite direction. Lazy, asinine writing.
Click to expand...

I kind of like the type, its an indictment of religious thinking. Hating their tiny lives and hoping to sacrifice them for something greater, even if it is horrible
 
Well then, by all means review your feeble non-Dead Space 2 games
 
Samon Fish said:
It's not the first time Stemot has chosen to be a crazy fanboy about something rubbish!
Click to expand...

Yeah, I also doubt it'll be the last time I completely ignore your unimportant opinion. :p
 
First person that says they love me gets my Darkspore beta invite key, my PC couldn't handle it. I would have needed a Core 2 Duo 2.13GHz and I'm running PentiumD Duo Core, a little behind on the times :( but yeah I'll PM the beta key ASAP

EDIT: I'll send this sometime but PM to remind me, I'm going to be AFK for a long time
 
Warped said:
First person that says they love me gets my Darkspore beta invite key, my PC couldn't handle it. I would have needed a Core 2 Duo 2.13GHz and I'm running PentiumD Duo Core, a little behind on the times :( but yeah I'll PM the beta key ASAP

EDIT: I'll send this sometime but PM to remind me, I'm going to be AFK for a long time
Click to expand...

I've got one as well for some reason, **** knows why, I've never been remotely interested in the game but EA sent it right into my inbox. It'll sit there and rot.
 
^ same here, i dont think these beta keys were particularly exclsuvie tbh =s
 
Singularity 6/10

Consolitis. It uses checkpoint-based save games, only the most recent of which is kept in history for loading. When you wask past certain unmarked points, doors close that won't let you return past them. I'd be exploring, and would pass one of these doors that would then lock out an unexplored area. My only option was to reload the last checkpoint, causing me to replay certain sections. What is the point of the "start" screen in a PC game, especially for leaving the game, since it brings up another "are you sure" screen before you quit anyway? You are given access to a ton of power ups, but there aren't really any circumstances where, for example, you're in dire need of ammunition, TMD energy, or even health. The weapons are already fairly overpowered, and the power ups didn't add overly useful bonuses (reloading a little faster was okay; I rarely emptied an entire clip, so extended clips weren't needed; higher damage was nice, but the weapons were already quite deadly). A bit about the weapons:
Pistol - I guess every FPS needs one to start with. I only used it until I found the next weapon.
Shotgun - Well done... I carried this often, since many of the mutants had melee attacks and had to get close.
Sniper rifle - The temporal dilation feature really made this overpowered (you can slow time down when zoomed in). There is apparently a meter for the distortion that you can't see: you had about five seconds of distortion before it was gone, after which it would have to recharge.
Assault rifle - Few enough enemies were medium-range to be worth keeping this on hand. Enemy soldiers knew how to take cover, or if they ran at you, the shotgun was good enough.
Spikeshot - I wanted desperately to use this gun more, but it was made for medium-range enemies. Still satisfying when used though.
Grenade launcher - Never used this except for the 'training' scene, and a few kills to see how it worked... I never came across enough enemies at once where this would have been better than, say, the autocannon. Seemed like it would have been fun to use though.
Seeker - Way overpowered: if I ever replay this game, I may not even pick this weapon up.
Rocket launcher - It was handy to take out soldiers with when I didn't feel like switching to the sniper rifle, but like the Seeker, wasn't one you could carry far. Some level changes 'forced' you to drop it.
Minigun - Why was the clip for this weapon so deep? I never emptied the whole thing at once, and this was before the clip upgrades. This would have been a blast if there were more enemies.
TMD - This added a nice variety in ways to deal with enemies. I also never ran out of ammo for this. Shortly after you get the serious upgrades for this, you get the last upgrade, which makes it even stronger and not use ammo. Next time I play this, I'll pass on the upgrades. The Deadlock feature provided opportunities to make interesting kills (fire it up on an enemy, bring out the autocannon, unload half a clip on somebody, walk to the side of the enemy and wait for the Deadlock to wear off. Destruction!)

Enemies - not a bad variety, but also not enough. Given your armament, these should have come at you in hordes, and the "bosses" should have been encountered more often.
Mutant - The 'weak' enemy, it did come with a surprise leap attack that was fun to counter, and if you shot their legs off, they'd crawl after you.
Revert - Mutant v2.0, but no leap attack. They were deaf, and you could creep past them, but given the relative scarcity of enemies, I always opted for a fight.
Zek - Neat new gameplay tactic, I liked dealing with these critters. Too bad they only came at you a few at a time (yes, even on that one level where there were tons of them, they came at you one at a time).
Echo Zek - The walkthroughs mention two, but I only remember one. This was a fun fight, but again, I wish there was more.
Zek King - A fun boss fight, should have been more, or combined with some lesser enemies.
Radion - Their attack mode was fun to dodge, but they were large and didn't move much, which made them easy targets. At least there was more than a couple of them.
Phase Tick - These were overly easy to deal with using the TMD, so I went after them with conventional weapons for a challenge.

Other than consolitis and a lack of enemies, the game was quite well done: it doesn't use GFWL, no bugs/hangs*, ran smoothly with everything turned up, graphics were nice, story was interesting, and was told well enough (audio logs, cryptic messages on walls, notes left around, etc.), environmental puzzles were a hoot, and the gameplay was fun.

*on occasion, textures wouldn't load, and I'd be looking at a blurred mash of a wall, desk, or whatever. Forgot about that.
 
Killzone 3:

On the whole i'd say a slight improvement over its predecessor, Much more responsive controls and a more varied campaign help this game stand above the second. Its still a typical FPS affair of today's standards tho so you know what your in for: a fun, albeit unsurprising, setpiece laden campaign that is unfortunately too short and has very little replay value to it =/
The multiplayer is quite fun tho I am really enjoying the operations mode :)

2 sticking points I did have with the game tho:
First, there are quite alot of on rail sections, its not a big issue but it did stick in my mind seeing as there are 5 of them across 9 chapters so you are getting one almost every 2 levels =s
Second, that ending. Wow, i mean wow....I heard bad things about it before I finished the game anyway and it still didnt prepare me for how bad that was -_-

You drop a nuke onto stahl's cruiser and it explodes, however somehow the ensuing nuclear explosion covers the entire planet!? O____o
Sev and co. look at the damage and wonder aloud how many people had just died there. No sooner as the words leave his mouth the screen cuts to black and the credits roll.

Mid credits tho it hints Stahl is still alive.

Yeah haven't seen an ending that insulting and brief since Kane and lynch 2 -___-
 
Prey - 5/10

is a generic sci-fi shooter where you kill the aliens, die and respawn.

pros:
-the main menu theme
-the intro
-no censorship
-jen's rounded ass in her tight jeans
-grandpa guy is the only decent character in the entire game
-puzzles are actually good and fun.
-gets better during the last levels

cons:
-absolutely everything designed for the game: characters, enemies, weapons, levels, props
-could use some colors other than black and brown, it's all bland.
-the main character, tommy, is an annoying mother****er
-is very repetitive
-you can run out of ammo fast
-you can die fast too

???
-apparently, all the native americans have magical powers
-it's doom 3 meets quake iv.

so yeah, I really wanted to like this game, but it's ruined by the poor design choices. you can sit through to see the cool puzzles and scenes, other than that, there's no reason to play this game. it's like a technology demo to show off their cool tricks.

2v7unih.jpg

dpk96p.jpg

2zji9kw.jpg
 
AHA-Lambda said:
Killzone 3:

On the whole i'd say a slight improvement over its predecessor, Much more responsive controls and a more varied campaign help this game stand above the second. Its still a typical FPS affair of today's standards tho so you know what your in for: a fun, albeit unsurprising, setpiece laden campaign that is unfortunately too short and has very little replay value to it =/
The multiplayer is quite fun tho I am really enjoying the operations mode :)

2 sticking points I did have with the game tho:
First, there are quite alot of on rail sections, its not a big issue but it did stick in my mind seeing as there are 5 of them across 9 chapters so you are getting one almost every 2 levels =s
Second, that ending. Wow, i mean wow....I heard bad things about it before I finished the game anyway and it still didnt prepare me for how bad that was -_-

You drop a nuke onto stahl's cruiser and it explodes, however somehow the ensuing nuclear explosion covers the entire planet!? O____o
Sev and co. look at the damage and wonder aloud how many people had just died there. No sooner as the words leave his mouth the screen cuts to black and the credits roll.

Mid credits tho it hints Stahl is still alive.

Yeah haven't seen an ending that insulting and brief since Kane and lynch 2 -___-
Click to expand...
Yeah I felt a big WTF last night myself playing this at the end. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0wiScd0zyY skip to 6:40...that was the worst line anyone could have said at that precise moment.

but yeah it was a very fun game otherwise. The controls were better, graphics still were very nice. I did however hate dying so much during some parts, it just seemed like WTF this is annoying. They also throw the F bomb out there like a teenager would. You see these generals just screaming the word "****" all the time in the cutscenes and it just seems childish. Anyway 8.5/10 for me but there is no way I'm playing the singleplayer again. Also this game was the best of the series
 
Pretty much agree with you warped :)

and the swearing i thought was definitely toned down from the second :LOL:

yea just like most games nowadays fun but too short and you'll almost certainly never play the campaign again, glad i rented it as fun as it was.
Might pick it up cheap down the road for the MP tho (surprisingly fun stuff there :))

Last year there was Press X to Jason but this year we will.....
Press O to Genocide

yea i stole that from gaf :LOL:
 
AHA-Lambda said:
4/10 seems abit less than mediocre to me :p
Click to expand...

Not at all. 4-5-6 - these are 'average' scores, and given that DS landed the 4, I'd say 'mediocre' is an apt description. It's not a flat-out indictment of the game. I didn't hate DS. Heck, I didn't even dislike it. It just wasn't all that good. DS2 is better but it's just a polished version of the same old, and I'm already growing a little bored of it. I read one critic describe it as the "Aliens" to DS1's "Alien", which I think is an accurate summation of the differences between them. In a way that I can't quite put my finger on, DS2, with all its flexibility and general superiority, is missing a little something of its predecessor.
 
AHA-Lambda said:
Pretty much agree with you warped :)

and the swearing i thought was definitely toned down from the second :LOL:

yea just like most games nowadays fun but too short and you'll almost certainly never play the campaign again, glad i rented it as fun as it was.
Might pick it up cheap down the road for the MP tho (surprisingly fun stuff there :))

Last year there was Press X to Jason but this year we will.....
Press O to Genocide

yea i stole that from gaf :LOL:
Click to expand...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_56257iS77A

never saw this till now
 
Samon Fish said:
Not at all. 4-5-6 - these are 'average' scores, and given that DS landed the 4, I'd say 'mediocre' is an apt description. It's not a flat-out indictment of the game. I didn't hate DS. Heck, I didn't even dislike it. It just wasn't all that good. DS2 is better but it's just a polished version of the same old, and I'm already growing a little bored of it. I read one critic describe it as the "Aliens" to DS1's "Alien", which I think is an accurate summation of the differences between them. In a way that I can't quite put my finger on, DS2, with all its flexibility and general superiority, is missing a little something of its predecessor.
Click to expand...

Ah ok, I always saw 4/10 being less than average really but i see your point.

And i do agree with you on DS2 aswell. When you get to
the ishimura I felt that was one of the best parts of the game which was very strange when it was a pretty generic setting and DS2 is a better game mechanically.

I guess DS2 didn't have the charm of the first I guess =/
 
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - 7/10
Hmm. I just played through to the end of the game having failed to turn a character back onto my side, and I really couldn't give a shit. I'm taking that as a bad sign.

The story as a whole is kind of intriguing, the mid-game twist not necessarily pre-readable, but... the whole thing is just not delivered in an interesting way. Everyone in the game rattles on at you, which is kind of amusing considering that they attempt a 'rambling old man' character who talks as much as every other bloody character in the game. With random excursions to familiar planets and other trappings of fanservice, it's a shrine to all things Star Wars and plays a lot like an interactive encyclopaedia to the extended universe of the films. I'm sure that works for some people, and yeah, on some level I feel like I had fun with that stuff. But seriously: 'Oohho! This Tatooine place is never going to last? Is It? I mean, Is it? Ohhoho, these crazy guys!'. Ugh.

Some of the lore is actually pretty restrictive: this is easily the worst alignment system I've seen in a game. Endless one-arm bandit like interventions in the early game build your gauge up for no real reason. Making it a tug of war between dark and light just makes you choose between irritating prissiness and goatee-bearded evil wizardry, leaving you to build up a voiceless character with nothing interesting going for them. I'm not sure whether this is a consequence of good ol' Lucas' prequel series, but the Sith's motivations make even less sense than they've ever done. The blink and you'll miss it salvations and falls of characters in the game are almost set up to be something profound, as opposed to being the exercise in 'a wizard did it' banality that they are.

Frankly, the whole thing makes me appreciate the character aspect of role-playing in Mass Effect a whole lot more though, difficulty aside, KOTOR is still better in the menus and dice rolling sense of 'Role Playing'. Of course, I now know that the recycled most of this game to make the first instalment of Mass Effect, which just melts my mind, considering how lazy I thought that game already was.

So from all I've just wrote, there's a review in there of a five or six out of ten game. I don't know. I guess I just feel that any game you willingly spend 50 hours of your life on must have been fun at some point. Dear god I hope that's the case.

Edit: So uhh, yeah. Take that, game of eight years ago.
 
stemot said:
They were never actually going after Teidemann, he just happened to be in the same place as what they were going after, which was the Marker. This is the reason why he is never really focused on as much as the Marker psychological effects on Isaac or Stross. The main over arching plot is Isaacs dementia at the hands of the Marker and his battle to overcome it.
Click to expand...

stemot said:
You say the the Marker just sits there and that he fills the role of the antagonist because the Marker cannot but that's not the case. You spend the entire game battling the marker in the form of Nicole who is much more of an antagonist than Teidemann ever is in the game and what the game is completely focused on throughout. The real battle of the game is against the Markers infection of Isaacs mind and how it's using him throughout to bring about Convergence. Tiedemann may be an enemy of Isaac but it certainly can't be said the whole game's story hinges on chasing him, it's never at any point Isaacs objective to find Teidemann but throughout he continues to battle his mind, Nicole and the Marker.

The story is never about chasing down the "bad guy military space megalomaniac".
Click to expand...

I haven't finished the game yet, but that's how the whole thing is shaping up.

Teidemann didn't just happen to be in the same place as the Marker, for he is in possession of it throughout the game. For the most part, I've essentially been pursuing him, and he's the obstacle I'm going to have to go through in order to get to the Marker (I presume). I don't feel the argument that the game is about Isaac's battle with the "Marker's infection" of his mind holds that much water. It's important, but it only ever takes the form of brief, non-interactive (other than PRESS E!!!!!) encounters with Nicole. Tiedemann's actions affect both Isaac and the other characters, impeding their progress on more than one occasion (going through the Ishimura for instance). I'm sorry Stemot, but I think your argument is obscure and obtuse.

Also, I thought we were over the days of flooding the player with enemies in a small, enclosed space? If they wanted to see how it played with the over-the-shoulder camera, I think it's fair to say 'not very well at all thank you very much'.
 
Samon Fish said:
For the most part, I've essentially been pursuing him, and he's the obstacle I'm going to have to go through in order to get to the Marker (I presume).
Click to expand...


I'm sorry, I have to disagree. He's not what Isaac is pursuing at all, like I said, he just happens to be at Isaacs objective. Sure he's trying to stop you from getting to you're objective but he's never really the true antagonist in the game. Also, he's not 1. The big obstacle to overcome before getting to the Marker or 2. A big obstacle to overcome at all.
 
Dawn of War 2 7/10- I love RTS but not really 4x so this is Exactly what I want in strategy. I hate the warhammer story though so getting me to give a shit about the plot was not likely and indeed I did not care at all if the OH SO GAY space marines were triumphant or not and often had fun watching them die. I think the problem is the setting is too dark which makes the conflict uninteresting since it is not about underdog vs evil galaxy but rather evil part of evil galaxy maintaining evil status quo.

But I love the gameplay minus not being able to get your commanders permanently killed because they tried to give them some half assed personality and development. Seriously these queers would be a lot more interesting if they would discover the vagina and might become less bland pricks. They should have gone with the model of Starship troopers TA where every character can be replaced and all you lose is exp with a somewhat limited pool and the opportunity to ressurect some if you are fast enough. The ST style would also fit well with the Tyranid enemy since it is mostly about moving fast and not getting bogged down since the Tyranids just keep coming. They should really let the game developers actually change the setting a little, the problem with comic/tabletop game adaptations is they dont let them change cannon at all so the swarm was just a minor swarm instead of a rulebook changing one and nothing was done of any significance. Having the Blood Ravens reduced to a single world or better yet having to move their chapter would have been awesome

The game is also enormously repetitive but i did not bother defending the Imperial Shrines or many of the other things it tried to make me do so it didnt bother me
 
onwME.jpg


“The big return… it is long overdue. His big comeback is imminent. And it will make noise, lots of noise. But who is it? The answer is in your PlayStation Magazine next month!”

Any ideas?

Edit:

**** YOU FRANCE AND YOUR SHITTY APRIL FOOLS JOKES

uam2y.gif
 
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