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the be all end all video game thread

Discussion in 'Pop Culture Board' started by hawt, Oct 19, 2009.

  1. hawt

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    I almost dropped $50 on all of the downloadable content for Fallout 3 on the PS3 ($50) but then I realized I could trade in my old copy for $10 credit, and but the Game of the Year edition used for $49 and just pay $39 and actually have a hard copy rather than something downloaded.

    I ended up trading in a couple old ps2 games I never touch and got another $10, so

    Can't wait to check out the expansions.
     
  2. D26

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    I'm really looking forward to both XIII and Versus XIII. I don't know what you mean about XII, though. I actually really liked XII.

    The problem with Final Fantasy games is the title. The games have virtually no connection to each other outside of a few things in every final fantasy game (i.e. moogles, someone named Cid, etc). Otherwise, they're always completely different, with different game systems, play styles, and stories. You can't really look at them as a series so much as individually different games. I know a lot of people that despised VIII, whereas I actually quite enjoyed VIII. Personally, I tended to dislike IX, which one of my friends claims was the best in the series. I've yet to meet anyone that actually enjoyed X, whereas I thought X was fantastic.

    The thing is, it wouldn't surprise me if there were people that loved XIII, but hated Versus XIII (or the other way around). From what I understand, they're going to be very different play styles, with XIII being more traditional RPG while Versus XIII will play a lot like the Kingdom Hearts games, more action with RPG elements. Could be wrong, though.

    /Final Fantasy Geek Mode
     
  3. Tey

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    I'm with you 100% on the bolded part. I hated 9, it felt like playing a Disney reject, and I thought that for all tense and purposes 10 wasn't bad at all. Everyone hated it because of the grid system and I never got that... you get points, you use those points to move across the board... where the mystery?!? If you don't know where to go max out the board around you and then start going to places you haven't been. The only thing I hated about 10 was that some characters were the only ones that could kill some enemies forcing me to use them. I get the motivation behind that but hated not having control.

    As for the second part, I think both games will do just fine. XIII will make it just cause all of the other PRG ones have... VERSUS will be fine because Dissidia (from what I know) did great.
     
  4. Paged

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    I really enjoyed X, and found that a lot of variety could be had in terms of characters and their strengths. That being said, I've enjoyed almost all Final Fantasy games, but I did find XII to be a little out there in terms of difficulty, some bosses were very very challenging just because of the whole gameplay.
     
  5. Nettdata

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    I'm a technical architect for the new Need For Speed World Online.

    We just did our first beta test in Taiwan, and it worked out really well.

    Somebody put a bunch of vid caps up on youtube.

    Here they are, in case you're interested:










     
    #25 Nettdata, Oct 23, 2009
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 27, 2015
  6. Arms Akimbo

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  7. Bread Mustache

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    No, the real problem with Final Fantasy is that since FF8, they've all essentially been a rehash of the same characters and plot. Sure, there are some differences. Sometimes the protagonist isn't a whiny blond-haired adolesc...oh wait a minute. I think the main problem is that Square-Enix have hit a comfortable spot where they can sell the maximum number of games based on the Final Fantasy name alone without taking any real risks to try to make the games spectacular. I would also say that they are attempting to market these games to adolescent boys, yet I would be willing to put money on the fact that the vast majority of FF fans at this point are the ones who grew up with it last decade and who are now adults. Sure, the adolescent thing worked when RPGs were basically the only games to play with a decent story, but we have Bioshock now. And COD4 and Oblivion and GTA4 and Metal Gear Solid 4, etc...The point being Neither Japan nor RPGs have dominion over great stories and characters in videogames anymore. Also, games with the number 4 in the title are apparently really good.

    And really, story and characters are ultimately why people play those games (has anybody bought an FF game specifically to try out the lame new battle systems that they keep coming up with? No). Not to mention that the more recent entries are extremely toned down compared to the glorious FF7, which in the first quarter of the game has you visit a brothel in order to sit in a hot tub with six CLEARLY homosexual men in order to cross-dress in order to infiltrate a slum lord/pimp's mansion where Cloud and friends proceed to threaten to castrate him in multiple ways ("I'll cut them off" "I'll rip them off" "I'll smash 'em"). Holy fuck that's awesome. Then of course there's Aeris, the most innocent character of the whole game, getting brutally murdered halfway through. And Professor Hojo, whose "experiments" would make Josef Mengele blush. I could go on forever, but stuff like that makes that game completely badass and memorable. THAT is what made people talk about that game when it first came out and why they continue to talk about it today. It transcended the "just a videogame" label and became a social object. Whose the final boss in 9? A fucking tree? Please. What about 10? A giant whale that flies? Get the fuck out. Don't even get me started on Seymour. He would have been a more compelling character if he was actually gay, but he's not. He's just the most effeminate and un-intimidating villains in Final Fantasy history. And his name is fucking Seymour.

    The lack of anything truly exciting, shocking, or funny has made the past 12 years of final fantasy incredibly stale. Fun? Kind of. But stale. All they have going for them at this point are flashy cinematics with some limp-dick J-Pop song playing in the background...and characters who share the same hair stylist.

    Alright. Enough Final Fantasy nerd ranting.
    Sorry, this wasn't really directed at you D26. I've wanted to go off about this for a while.
    So until they really go back to the drawing board and come up with something new, I just don't care. I see the previews and shit for FF13 and I realized that I've completely stopped caring about these games. And it kind of sucks because I really want to like them.
     
  8. valeo

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    Guys, come on. I think we can all agree on the way to fix this. Square needs to nut the fuck up and make Tactics 2.
     
  9. D26

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    I won't totally disagree about the protagonist being the same every game, but I thought XII did a good job of shoving Vaan to the background after the first 5 hours of the game and shifting the focus to Ashe.

    I have a long diatribe on X coming up, so I'll just say, as for the last sentence: Devil May Cry 4...?

    The thing about the story for X is that it was toned down a lot from the Japanese version, but if you dig slightly below the surface, it gets a little more compelling. Little things were removed so that it wouldn't be quite so offensive to our American tastes. If you play that game and really pay attention to the story, you realize it is one big allegory as to why religion and church (from what I understand, specifically the Roman Catholic Church) is stupid and corrupt. Shit, Wakka, who is supposed to be a bit of a comic relief character, is a giant fucking racist. Summoners have to continually sacrifice themselves (a la Jesus) to make the world happy, until some outsider finally comes along and starts questioning it. If you look slightly deeper, it shows a society that was perfectly content to go on forever letting people get horribly massacred in a spiral of death over and over again until someone sacrificed themselves to die so others could live, until finally someone shows up that looks at the whole situation for what it is: fucking retarded (BTW: would've been much better if Tidus could've just said "you people are fucking retarded."). It took a complete outsider coming in and questioning everything to finally convince a few of them to question it themselves. Ultimately, it makes the entire religion of Spira out to be the villain, with Seymour being it's representative. If you think of Seymour as the pope, it kind of makes his effeminate ways and the fact that he does come off as pretty gay even funnier and slightly more compelling. BTW: he didn't want to bang Yuna. He didn't even like Yuna. He wanted to become Sin so he could become all powerful and destroy the planet.

    The other part of the story was all of them dealing with the fact that they are basically on a death march for a good friend, and how they cope with the fact that they know they are essentially walking her to a fucking execution chamber.

    One of the changes they made was that originally Kimhiri's final weapon was called the "Spear of Longinus" which was named after the spear they used to pierce Jesus on the cross. Apparently, they thought that might cause a bit of a problem for the hardcore christians in this country, so it was changed. There were other small instances of this, as well. If you dig slightly below the "Tidus is just a whinny bitch" surface, you see that the story is actually a really deep allegory.

    I'll second that IX sucked, though. Long and hard.

    Hey, I totally get where you are coming from. You're not the first to have those feelings, I have a few friends that were way into these games before, but just stopped caring. I think it was a combination of age, with the fact that they felt no game would ever compare to either VI or VII. In fact, for about a year, the most common drunken geek argument amongst my friends was which Final Fantasy was better, VI or VII. It was the single dumbest thing to argue about, but thats what drunk geeks playing RISK tend to do.

    I swear, I'm done hijacking the thread with silly Final Fantasy bullshit, for at least an hour.
     
  10. hawt

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    I've never been a huge fan of first person shooters but I have to say all of the hype about Borderlands is getting me. I tried to rent it but no one had it in stock. I think I just might take the plunge and buying it

    I love games like Fallout 3 and Oblivion that are first person RPGs, but I can't stand games like Halo 3 or Killzone 2 - I'm just not very good at FPS. However, Diablo II owned my life in high school and this game seems to be a combination of all three styles.

    I know a few people have raved about it on here, but has anyone with a similar background to me go in not sure what to think and get completely blown away? Let down?

    Also, to weigh in on all the Final Fantasy drama...

    A PlayStation was the first thing I ever bought with my own money and Final Fantasy VII was the first video game I ever owned. (I had played Mario and Donkey Kong and shit at a friends house previously though). And I have to say that I think FFVII was the best game of the console generation. I know it is mostly nostaglia and sentimental value to me though. I've tried replaying the game recently and just can't get back into it. I just don't have 100 hours to dump into a game anymore.

    That said, I still pick up and buy every Final Fantasy game, at midnight and I don't care about innovation or anything like that, I just want to be entertained for a few hours a week when I get some free time. The more recent games might not be innovative, or be re-hashed or whatever but I still enjoy them because they are better than 90% of the other crap out there.

    There are hardly any worthwhile RPGs on the PS3 right now so I'm looking forward to picking up FFXIII (and Versus) because I know they will be high-quality games that will suck me in, keep entertained, and give me a reason to put off grading papers and making lesson plans.
     
  11. DannyMac

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    This.

    Still think it's potentially the second greatest FF title after FF VI and ahead of VII, IV, et. al.
     
  12. Tey

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    Just because the opportunity is here, here's my two cents on all the FF games.

    I know stories are important, but I honestly don't blame SquareEnix for recycling characters and plots. How many GOOD RPG's have come out in the last 6 moths?? Really?? And I don't mean good two a couple people or fans of a previous title, I mean good from a general public's perspective. Hardly any... and with that in mind I don't blame Square for not trying radically new things. I'm pretty sure true RPG's are dying out and the ones that aren't are adapting to include elements driving most other genres. There's no real reason to start making breakthroughs and complete 180's in terms of story and character design because aside form the guys like us who've played all of them not many others will buy the game with that as the determining factor.

    Having said that, over time I've learned to ignore the repetitive stories when they are just that and play the games for all the little extras they put in them. Beating FF X was a third or fourth goal on my list... the first?? Blitzball. I BARELY beat FF 8 because I spent all of my time playing that stupid card game and collecting all of the rare cards from player all over the unreasonably big map. I hated 9 because there was nothing else to do but play which forced me to focus on the horrible characters and a predictable story. The only exception was XII. I REALLY liked that game not only because the story was a little newer but because the battle system made it a game in itself. The dynamic fighting was always different and kept things interesting enough to get to the good parts in the story. Also, to me the game had a different feel than the rest... almost like Vagrant Story combined with Dark Cloud (1) combined with Grandia. Whatever they did it worked for me and I'd love to see the same battle system and historical environments come back again (I haven't seen gameplay reviews for XIII). My point is that with the way RPG's have been going it's not really fair to hold a game accountable based on just the story. A good example is Magna Carta 2 as reviewed by Gabe on Penny-Arcade

    As for Tactics 2... Disgaea ruined all prospects of ever playing another tactical game for me. 60+ hours into the game and I realized that the main story was only 40% of everything you could do... WHY ARE THERE SO MANY OPTIONS?!?!?! If you want Tactics back THAT bad go get Disgaea. 1 or 2... doesn't matter, they'll both make you want to kill yourself.
     
  13. RCGT

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    I recently got Halo 3: ODST and Street Fighter IV with my roommates.

    ODST is a really interesting game. If you're used to run-and-gun in any of the other Halo games, you'll probably die a lot before you get used to it.

    There are a couple of differences from the previous games. As the title implies, you're not playing as Master Chief, the last cyborg who can save the planet, but as an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper, or a soldier who drops from space in a little pod into the war zone. Your character has stamina (which functions as a weaker shield system) and health (like in Halo 1). This means your guy is a lot weaker than in the other games, which emphasizes using tactics and cover a little more. Your standard weapons are a silenced pistol and silenced SMG, which is cooler than I expected; you just feel like a badass popping grunts in the head with that classic silencer sound. My favorite addition was probably the VISR, which is a combination of night-vision and a target-ID system. It looks pretty fucking cool:
    [​IMG]
    First off, it's pretty realistic (as far as these things go). If you're in a well-lit area with your VISR on, you won't be able to see shit because everything will be too bright. On the other hand, it drastically improves your night vision. This isn't some Truth-&-Reconciliation-type shit; areas that used to be pitch-black (i.e. most of New Mombasa) will suddenly be visible.

    I really like the set-up of the game as well. It's non-linear for the first 6 missions or so. You play as the Rookie, who blacks out when another pod hits his upon entering the atmosphere. When he comes to, it's 6 hours after drop and his whole squad is missing. The game starts you out in the city of New Mombasa, with squads of Brutes, Jackals, Grunts and Hunters roaming the city. You have to find clues to your squadmates' disappearance. Once you find one, the game switches into flashback mode and you get to play through that memory as one of your squadmates. It's a cool hub system; the city itself is really atmospheric and lonely, and the soundtrack has jazz influences, which sounds awesome. Marty O'Donnell knows his stuff.

    Street Fighter IV is my current obsession, though. This game is fucking deep; to be good at it you have to know your basic and your advanced moves, and when to use each. This isn't like Soul Caliber, with a million combos you can learn; there's only a couple, but they link together really well. There was obviously a lot of thought put into balancing the game. There's 7 computer difficulty settings: I get my ass kicked pretty consistently on medium, and there's 3 more above that. If you're looking for a game to play with your friends when you're drunk, or if you're a pro gamer (heh) who's looking for a new game to dominate, this is a good pick.
     
  14. Bread Mustache

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    The Shin Megami Tensei games come to mind. I've been playing the most recent one for DS a little bit and so far it's fantastic and interesting. The problem with those is that they don't have the 4000 commercials on TV a day like you see when a new FF is coming out, so they get released pretty quietly. It proves your point though. I agree that RPGs are dying but I think that has more to do with the overused "kid saves the world" plots than anything else. There are so many other types of stories that can be done in that genre, it's just nobody's doing it.
     
  15. D26

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    If you want a good action RPG for the PS3, pick up Demon's Souls.

    This game is so fucking deep it is astonishing. I am 4 hours in, and still on stage 1-2. It is the first game I've ever played where I have died, repeatedly, about ten times in one stage, and continue to play. Its the only game that has ever made me say "Thank you sir, may I have another" as it spanks me. Story ain't exactly great, but the RPG elements and action elements blend seamlessly, and overall I am loving it so far.

    I get massacred over and over, and the truth is I don't feel like I've had a cheap death yet. Every time I die, I know it is my fault. I rushed into battle. I didn't defend properly.

    Yeah, I'm loving it.
     
  16. valeo

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    Thats because Disgaea isn't that good a game. It takes a lot of what tactics did and doesn't do it as well. I know, I played it. Playing a shitty game isn't going to make me not want a great one. Tactics had an amazing story, great characters, a big enough map, and enough different missions/objectives to keep it interesting. Disgaea was the all based out of one place, and was just dungeon after dungeon (if I recall correctly) it got repetitive real quick. The two aren't even comparable.
     
  17. iczorro

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    I fucking loved Blitzball.

    I am actually in the process of playing VII right now, never played it before. In fact, the only FF I've played was X. I'm only now getting to the second continent and I can already see why this is considered one of the great games.
     
  18. Tey

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    Fair enough... I'll take my comment back then, since I was basing my opinion on the week or so that I spent trying out tactics a long time ago. I didn't get a chance to dive deep into the game because I made a bunch of parallel assumptions to Disgaea and just assumed they were the same. On that note... does anyone have any recommendations for tactic-type games that aren't that bad?? I actually like the concept a lot (see Ogrebattle 64) but Disgaea scared me off pretty much every other title. The time investment was just unreal and you were right on the money with it being repetitive. I just assumed that;s how it is supposed to be. (I have DS, Xbox 360, and PS2 but I'd like to avoid using the PS2).

    Can anyone give me some feedback on Borderlands. I'm really considering getting this (no more Gamefly) and honestly, from what I've seen in the trailers If I can get a solid weeks worth of fun out of the game I'll be happy.
     
  19. Hogie

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    I've finally taken the plunge, and bought a PS3 today, I'm pretty stoked. I got GTA IV, Bioshock, and Burnout Paradise. There's not a lot of room in my budget for games over $30, so I'm going to wait for CoD:MW2 to come out an splurge on that. In the meantime, are there any other must have games, that sell for $30 or less?
     
  20. travdiddy84

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    How do you do that?