Those were the days

Halo was an outstanding game.

Halo 2 and 3 on the other hand, they took the franchise in exactly the wrong direction. They seem to have more in common with Unreal than with the original Halo.

 

Halo 2 and 3 are the Twilight/Inheritence of gaming. *shudder* Utter shit that's somehow been hailed as 'excellent' or 'epic' or whatever. I ever meet Paolini or SMeyer, you know I'm gonna be on the evening news having to be hauled away from their baseball bat smashed corpses.

 

Well, Mirror's Edge was good.

Maybe not plotwise, but in the form of gameplay, it's awesome, I'n my opinion.

 

What? The invisible walls, evil camera and bloom that makes the entire world one shade of bright brown didn't bother you in the least? What is wrong with you, dude?

 

I'ven't played Mirror's Edge, but watching someone who is good at it play it is actually a rather captivating thing to do. The story IS a bit weak, but the uniqueness of the gameplay compensates for that, in my mind. Hang out with someone who's gotten really good at it, Xiao, and watch them play the game for awhile, and I think you'll get what I mean.*


*I admit that I positively suck at this game. Severely.

 

The shading is a bit off, but you get over it. I don't know what you mean by "evil camera". It's a FPS game, and therefor it has the First Person view that you can find in any FP game.

And no, I did not find any invisible wall. I admit that I haven't ventured that far of the route you supposed to take, but I found no reasons for it either.

 

I a big part of it is simply that as we grow older our nostalgia yearns for the fun times we had playing the games of yesteryear.

I will agree that emphasis is placed on graphics too much. I used to be a big fan of RTS game when there were sprite based (Original Red Alert and C&C were my bread and butter). Sprites are easy to understand tactically and visually and they don't get lost amongst the background. Nowadays, everything is 3D when it doesn't really need to be.

Also, these damn kids need to get off my lawn.

 

Well, some companies are learning that a game with weaker graphics sell more. For example, look at World of Warcraft, one of the most popular games out there and not the greatest of graphics. Also, the Wii is the most popular gaming console and its graphics are crap compared to Xbox 360 or PS3...

 

Well, it isn't that games with weaker graphics sell more, but that at the modern day level of graphics, game play and other elements are more important for sales than to boost up the graphics that bit more. Either that or game play and other elements are always better than graphics.

But strictly speaking: if two games were exactly the same and had the same price, except one had better graphics, then it would be the better game; not the reverse.

 

That's just arguing semantics. I think that instead of "better" something like "most suitable" is more appropriate.

 

I never said anything about a game being "better." That word defines personal opinion. I just said "popular" and "better sales." Those are what matter in this world.

 

I was really talking more to Garmbarf.

Besides, it seems logical to me that if a game was made with graphics that are suitable to it's gameplay style (and not just 3D for the sake of it), it would be a fun game. And fun games would sell the best.

 

I just started playing MGS4, and I have to say, it's pretty great. All the good-ol'-fashioned sneakery of its predecessors, and excellent graphics to boot. Of course, I think more time and effort went into its making than what normally goes to the 'blockbuster' games.

 

Okay Japes, it's been the better part of a week. MGS4's plot given you a headache yet? *chuckle* Man that entire game is mad. Talk about conspiracy theories.

 

When I beat MGS2, I said, out loud and to myself, "What the fuck?!?" And I don't really talk to myself often.

 

How about Phantom Dust? Sucky graphics, but probably one the best game concepts and game play I've ever seen on a home console game. And a really cool, creepy, interesting plot and setting too. All made and released for the bargain bin price of $20 brand new. Not that I'm expecting it, but if a sequal ever sees the light of day, I'll have renewed faith in the console gaming scene.

 

What was Phantom Dust released for? I'ven't ever heard of it.

 

I must confess, I had to look online to get enough of the back story for things to halfway make sense, but I think I have a pretty good grasp on plot now.

Now I'm trying to beat the game on 'Big Boss Extreme' difficulty without killing anyone or getting any alerts, all in under 5 hours. It's pretty challenging.

 

Shit, I'll say. My friend had been working on it for a couple of months now, hasn't even gotten close.

And I'd played all three previous games and still needed to sit down and think about it for a few hours to get my head round the damn plot. Kojima is the man, but damn can he spearhead some convoluted shit.

 

Phantom Dust

It was a highly addictive, "collectable skills" game. Think Magic the Gathering but with more action in a 3rd person shooter style taking place in a post apocalyptic future.

Basically, you and your opponents have an arsenal (think deck from Magic) of skills you use to win head-to-head matches. Each stage you battle on has a specific starting point for each player. This is where your skills spawn in. Skills are mapped to 1 of the 4 buttons of the Xbox controller depending on which button you pressed while standing over the skill. Arsenals have a maximum of 30 "slots" to assign a skill to, but each slot that does not contain a skill (assigned during the arsenal building process in between matches) instead contains an aura capsule (think Land/Mana in Magic). Skills from your arsenal randomly spawn in 1 of 3 areas of your starting point in each stage after a certain amount of time passes from the last time you collected a skill from that given area. There are several different types of skills from several different types of schools (think Colors from Magic). Some skills are all out attack skills, some are buff skills (making you run faster or recover aura faster), some are defensive skills (used to block or deflect attack skills), and some are Environmental skills (skills that effect everyone on the battle field, not just you). Each player begins a match with 20 life and loses when they are reduced to 0. There are several ways to reduce an opponents life. Either attack them outright with attack skills, knock them off the edge of the stage (which causes the unlucky player to lose 3 life and respawn back at their start point), or run out of skills and aura capsules in your arsenal, thus losing life every couple seconds till you die. There are tons of strategies and combos with over 300 skills to play with. If you play solo, you do different missions and fight against computer opponents. After each match, you win a random skill. In between missions, you can visit a store to purchase/unlock more skills of varying rarity and power. You can also go online and trade skills with other human players. There are also online-only skills you can unlock once you meet certain criteria during online play.

The game's a hell of a lot of fun. Highly recommended.