Recent gaming disappointments

Anything from run & guns to modern RPGs, what else do you play?
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BareKnuckleRoo
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Re: Recent gaming disappointments

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

Seconding that, it's really a first person survival horror game akin to Resident Evil in a 3D engine, rather than a stealth based game. The design of the levels and the AI really is not meant for stealth compared to Thief, you're meant to be smacking everything to death with a wrench or hitting it in the face with bullets and lasers.

Weapons do degrade rather fast for what you'd expect from a gun, but it's deliberate, with the tension meant to come from resource management as well as the randomly respawning elements. It's a melee heavy game and if you accept it as such, where you're going to be using your melee frequently on low priority enemies to save ammo and maintenance tools, it's really not so bad. It's also not too hard to implement tactics to manage the weapon degradation system such as pumping Maintenance to 3 or 4 quickly (or using the PSI that stops it if you prefer). Once you're at Maint 3 or 4 you can pretty much use ranged weapons full time since you squeeze a ton of shots out from each maintenance tool, especially using high efficiency weapons in terms of degradation like the laser pistol set to overcharge mode (which also is super efficient in energy use when upgraded twice).
Spoiler
There's also several weapons with the secret property that they will degrade but never jam, meaning you need never worry about repairing them or maintaining them. It is most likely a bug in how they were setup. This includes the very first shotgun you find that isn't broken in the game:

https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9964&s=

The Shotgun near the corpse behind the Machinery on the upper level of the storage room across from Watts' quarters, in addition to being the first working Shotgun, is unbreakable and has reduced recoil!
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Mischief Maker
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Re: Recent gaming disappointments

Post by Mischief Maker »

I know all these things and that's my point. Once you realize that the wrench is indestructible and the game becomes about Thief engine melee combat (the worst part of Thief) the tension drains from the game as you become acutely aware of all the AI's weaknesses in a way you wouldn't if you were hiding in the shadows while they creep into the room and hiss, "Where aaaare you?" Then in the late game when you pass the weapon breakdown hurdle, combat became even more of a joke for my hacker/sniper character. Oh, a giant horrifying mound of flesh is charging for me? Yawn, dead before it even came close.

My point with SS1 wasn't that it was a Thief analogue, it's that the whole audiolog-based horror story was done better in the first IMO. I've heard System Shock 1 described as "Die Hard in Space." Shodan is DOING things with clear consequences and you're frustrating her attempts at every turn. She's gonna zap Earth with a giant laser? Shut it down. She's gonna dose Earth with bioweapons? Eject it into space, etc.

In System Shock 2, half the damn game is about fixing a broken elevator. Good thing you brought your wrench!
Two working class dudes, one black one white, just baked a tray of ten cookies together.

An oligarch walks in and grabs nine cookies for himself.

Then he says to the white dude "Watch out for that black dude, he wants a piece of your cookie!"
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BryanM
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Re: Recent gaming disappointments

Post by BryanM »

The MMORPG scene in particular is a font of disappointment. An enormous amount of outright scams, or people who just don't have the resources to pull a game like that together, or they don't catch on and get shut down. What these people want can't possibly be Everquest, it's right there and they can play it any time they feel like it. It's clear what they want is back when Everquest was new and exciting, and it reminds me of the fans who want Star Wars to be new and relevant again. It's not a game they want, it's a time machine.

I'd be less mirthful about the situation, if all these things didn't have the same kind of "brown and green" realistic european medieval theme to them. And promised similar things that aren't a game. In the old days there was so much more experimentation - fangames of multiplayer Dragon Warrior, multiplayer roguelikes... You know, games, but that were multiplayer? I really respect the hell out of stuff like Temtem - like them or not, at least they're trying to fill a tangible demand and not impossible undefined dreams.
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BIL
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Re: Recent gaming disappointments

Post by BIL »

BryanM wrote:It's clear what they want is back when Everquest was new and exciting, and it reminds me of the fans who want Star Wars to be new and relevant again. It's not a game they want, it's a time machine.
Oho! That is quite profound Bryan! :o

The great appeal of single-sitting arcade games, 4 ME, is that they kinda are time machines :shock: I can pick a new (2 ME) one up - let's say SPACE BONERS II: THE GALAXY HARD-ON - and be a total garbage fire, while Larry "Bang Bang" Hashimoto, who's owned the Caravan Mode WR since the Reagan administration, can OFC fold that shit sixteen times then tear it in two, while giving an oral dissertation on ideal subweapon choice for each stage sub-sector, and why the fourth boss is a bitch-ass motherfucker, but the fifth is a joke, and the tragic motorcycle crash that caused the composer to leave his ROCKIN staff roll BGM unfinished, while Tokyo's finest pieced his obliterated arsehole back together. And the ONRY difference between me and Larry is he's a pro, and I'm a noob - like he used to be! Player Craft "THE TINY COCKEREL mkII" remains unmoved in armament and engine throughput... as does its opponent "BEEFCHASM EMPIRE LLC" !

I remember people calling it "Evercrack" circa my undergrad, when I was hollering "WOOHOOOO" and "BRO, THATS FUKKEN SHA-WEEEEEET" at Goldeneye multiplayer. I was told early on to choose my disappointments in life so I never got into MMO etc, I wanted to play Tekken Tag with muh bros >_> I am 99% sure I made the right call given my predilections, but who ever knows really? time makes disappoint of us all 3;
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To Far Away Times
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Re: Recent gaming disappointments

Post by To Far Away Times »

I hare stealth... System Shock 2 hit the right notes for me. The shooting gameplay is weak, but similar to games like Resident Evil, its the hidden "game behind the game" with its planning and resource management that makes it work for me.
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drauch
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Re: Recent gaming disappointments

Post by drauch »

Tried SiN again. Might have to put the nail in the coffin. Annoying characters and narrative is just the beginning. Movement is floaty and erratic, weapons lack 'umph'. Levels are a mess, long and winding, which according to someone that worked on the game was due to the classic rushing of development. The whole package just screams mediocre.
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Despatche
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Re: Recent gaming disappointments

Post by Despatche »

This is another of those meme threads, so here are some actual disappointments:

-Switch Sega Ages ending, just like that
-Phantasy Star Online 2 probably just going to Die in favor of The New Shit (which looks fantastic, mind), with the only silver lining being that we may get an actual PSO2 Classic someday soon
-PSUPedia seemingly dying, and there being basically no great information on certain key Phantasy Star games like Portable 2 Infinity even though it's worshipped as much as Monster Hunter Portable 3rd is
-PlayStation basically becoming an "American product" and the strange, growing threat to throw the entire Japanese base out on the street over it
-The continual sadness of Kaiser (not that Kaiser) having yet to be asked to do Turok 3 EX (though he probably hates the game like everyone else that isn't me)
-Grybanser Fox (yes that Kaiser) splitting up
-Doujin developer and game guide websites seemingly dying every other day
-The Pinball Arcade being dead, all you dumb FarSight haters can rejoice I guess, Zen is about to fuck all those people who bought into FX3 though

Can't think of anything else offhand.

Oh wait shmups being dead yeah.
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Squire Grooktook
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Re: Recent gaming disappointments

Post by Squire Grooktook »

RE: ss1 vs ss2

System Shock 2 to me is a great little survival horror / dungeon crawl hybrid that trade's in Resident Evil's enemy-position-puzzle-routing ("okay I need to get to room c, but there's a big monster in hall a, but if I sneak past the zombies in hall b and take a detour into this area I can get past 'em without wasting any resources!) for randomized enemy respawns that keep the resource-management heavy exploration tense.

I also enjoyed replaying it as a psychic and becoming a flaming invisible space wizard running a mach speed.

System Shock 1 I've tried to get into several times but I just can't. It just feels too slow and too janky for me and I can't bare it for any extended period of time. I'm sure it's a good game in its own way, but I'm pretty confident it's just not for me.
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BareKnuckleRoo
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Re: Recent gaming disappointments

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

I also enjoyed replaying it as a psychic and becoming a flaming invisible space wizard running at mach speed.
:lol:
System Shock 1 I've tried to get into several times but I just can't. It just feels too slow and too janky for me and I can't bare it for any extended period of time.
Have you tried Wrath of Earth? I'd highly recommend it; it gives a very similar vibe in terms of slower paced FPS exploration, but the controls are much less clunky.

I'm enjoying SS1, but it's largely in spite of the control scheme and not because of it. The atmosphere is top notch and worth playing through for that alone I'd argue. SS2 was a massive improvement in terms of how inventory management and combat were handled.
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