Video Games Thread

[harv]

That's always the case these days. Publishers tend to have games so easy to play so that QA staff can test them quicker and because they know that the vast majority of game reviewers are shite at playing games. If a reviewer finds a game too challenging then they tend to give bad reviews these days. It's part of the reason why ZombiU had the difficulty patched out of it. When it first released it was a proper zombie apocalypse simulator ( ). There was fuck all resources around, you had to pick and choose your shots because every bullet, flare and explosive was worth its weight in gold. You went back to the days when FPS games were difficult and you were walking around with just a whisker of health left praying that you wouldn't get hit again.

Playing the game with crosshairs and aim assist turned off was VERY stressful, I still to this day have nightmares about the Nursery lol

[jman]

I don't agree.. a hard game is not necessarily a good game - I started playing Lords of the Fallen before Quantum Break arrived and it felt frustratingly hard within the first 5 minutes.. enough to make me stop playing after an hour or two.  If it was a tad easier, I would probably be more inviting to go back to.. as it is, I didn't get very far and it didn't really pique my interests, so I probably wont bother again.  Fallout 4 wasn't a very hard game.. but one of my favourite games of recent times.. it was brilliant - felt like the difficulty was balanced nicely for the most part of the game.  Quantum Break is too easy - no doubts about it... doesn't make it a bad game though.

I did die in QB last night in Act 3 - but not because the game ramped the difficultly up.. the game is still easy, just some jarring spots where you need to do a certain thing at a certain point.. but I'm getting close to the end now and the story is starting to get really good.. it reminds me a bit of a film called Project Almanac (spoilers ahead) where a bunch of kids discover a time-travel machine and use it to change the future by altering the past - but then discover by altering the past, it has unexpected consequences in the future - and then they have to go back into the past to fix their mistakes - which cause more consequences.. and ultimately leads them to travel into the past to stop them finding the time machine.. which actually makes them find the time machine, essentially everyone is stuck in a time-loop and nothing can be done to change it (its a bit silly but I do love time-travel stuff) .  QB has a lot of similarities with this.. although of course I don't know how it is going to end yet.  I reckon I'll of finished the first play through by Monday though.

[harv]

Yup, but that's what difficulty levels were designed for. Back in the day Normal was always a challenge to play, even for experienced players. Hard was for complete nutjobs and Easy was a challenge for less experienced players to play.

The change is partly down to publishers and testers, partly down to reviewers being shite at playing games and partly down to making Achievements and Trophies easy to get and complete.

The game industry has gone right downhill during the last 20 years or so, and not just the difficulty of games either. The design of games has also gone right down the toilet too due to developers and publishers not going anywhere near a designer that doesn't have a crappy design degree. It REALLY used to frustrate me when I was working in the industry. There were plenty of shite design decisions across a variety of areas of a game from level design to game mechanics. I lost count of the amount of times that bugs were entered into the bug database as design issues only to be closed 'By design' also known in the trade as 'Can't Fix, Won't Fix' , and then of course you see reviewers bringing up these issues as problems during a review.

Used to drive me bloomin mental

You don't need a design degree to design games, if anything it gives you bad habits. All you need is PLENTY of game playing experience to know what works and what doesn't.

[Late]

Alan Wake freebie DLC

[harv]

Just noticed that you didn't have any Karma late so I've just applauded that post. Not that it makes any difference to the price of chips but you're now on +1 with me and jman lol

Didn't want you feeling unloved

[Late]

Thanks - lack of plaudits on a dead forum was totally stopping me from sleeping at night.

[Late]

Microsoft ready for cross-platform gaming. No news from Sony...

trustedreviews.com

[jman]

Thanks - lack of plaudits on a dead forum was totally stopping me from sleeping at night.

lol..

You still need to get the Alan Wake base game to play the expansions though.. definitely worth playing if you missed it the first time around.

I finished Quantum Break over the weekend.. I started on my second run through already - its very good how they have weaved two completely separate story branches into one game... after finishing the game, you realise the beauty of only having one ending because now if I try and change the past chapters by choosing different options, the game and story change as I go along, but the ultimate future will still work out the same.... clever!

Did enjoy it, but I'm very close to already 100%ing it.. so I might cash in and trade it for something else seeing as I have finished it super quick.

[Late]

Wasn't a fan of Alan Wake, personally.

[Late]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJ1r2f1Jv0Y

Titanfall 2 teaser. Coming to xb1, ps4, & pc.

Loved the first, so will definitely get this one.

[harv]

I quite liked Alan Wake, just a shame we had to wait, what? 4 or 5 years for it? I was convinced for a while that it was vapourware

[jman]

Oooh yeah, loving Titanfall 2 news.. I reckon I'll be getting it...

Whilst I did enjoy the first one a lot.. I want a god damn campaign to go with it !!

[jman]

Been playing a lot of Zoo Tycoon this week.. its alright but there are three really shit things about the game which is culling my interest in playing it much further :

1. The Zoo Limit sucks and is way too restrictive.. put too many things in your zoo and you can't build anymore.. it needs to be relaxed a lot more.

2. Animal Variety sucks.. 9 different types of giraffe, but no penguins, crocs, sealions, gorillas, cheetahs or zebras.

3. The whole game is dumbed down for the consoles.. you cant create your own pathways for instance and that improves playability with a controller - but it just sucks... you can drill into your expenses and such, but micromanagement and customization of most things is pretty basic - one thing I looked forward to doing was to build a lion enclosure and then open the gates so they ran rampant in my zoo mauling guests - nope can't do that - you can't even design the enclosures.. they come in small, medium or large variants and the shapes are always the same.


In comparison to the older PC counterparts - the game is frustrating and sucks.. too much hand holding, not enough customization and its way too easy - but its still fairly enjoyable in some places.. some of the achievements sound like a bit of a challenge.. so I'll go after them.. but there are stupid online co-op achievements so I wont get the full 100% - I hope whoever thought up having an online co-op mode in Zoo Tycoon got fired.. exactly what this game didn't need.

[harv]

That's a game for girls and homosexuals.

[jman]

Well I did partly buy it with my missus in mind as she loves the PC games.. just thought I'd give it a go first...

... besides I hardly think you are one to talk when questioning other peoples tastes in video games...  Raving Rabbids.. Lego City.. Monster Hunter.. you play games designed for kids because that's the only challenge you can muster