Actually I found it to be quite the opposite. The running around and shooting and killing of things was too required by Bioshock.
Play Deus Ex sometime and you'll understand the difference. The story and backstory in Bioshock is there but the shooting and use of violence against you is easily 90% of the game. I wouldn't say its very different from FEAR in terms of violence vs. story data... FEAR also has a lot of diary logs and extra reading materials and portions designed to make you think rather than react -- it was also fun.
I agree completely. I frequently wish my family members had Linux machines without admin privileges so that I could do remote support and rarely if ever have an actual software failure to deal with.
As it is, I get constant requests because they're able to thoroughly foul up their computers in a click or two.
The proximity of the phone to your head is irrelevant to most people and even driver safety. If you had an elastic holding the phone against the side of your face while you drove you wouldn't need a bluetooth headset.
The number of people I've met who are concerned with cell phone "radiation" are extremely limited... and I don't recall any of their names. Purposefully.
If she pours a glass of something, there's a half an inch at the bottom at least when she's "done".
If she opens a can of coke, it always has half or a third left behind.
It really doesn't matter what size the drink is, she always leaves some behind.
With gaming, I wonder if the 80% who don't finish a game would even finish the one hour version of those same games. I suspect people who don't finish games simply weren't engaged enough to bother, or found a sudden difficulty increase at the end that was too hard.
On that second point, I didn't complete GoW1 for ages because when I finally got to the Ares battle, I found the save-your-family battle too hard to complete the first time and couldn't be bothered. I'd beaten most of the game without dying but that sequence suddenly stuck it to me. I eventually went back to it and completed the game but I suspect similar reasoning for others as well.
I thought lightning dodging was brilliant. I didn't do it beyond about 20x, but a friend of mine did. It was brilliant because you don't miss out on anything substantive by not doing it, but it rewards those few obsessive compulsive types who are willing to try it.
Deus Ex was amazing and worth completing. It had its slow points, like an old movie, but it was overall very good and I actually finished it.
Bioshock bored me after about two hours however. Very repetitive and yet-another-fps for me. I felt like I was playing a graphically upgraded Half Life without the thought put into it.
I completed FFX and FFXIII but only in the sense that I beat the bosses. I never got all the ultimate weapon upgrades in FFX and I'm still working on the missions list in FFXIII.
I had a 150hr save in Oblivion without ever reaching the fourth stage of the main plot. I enjoyed exploring dungeons a bit too much I suppose.
I did the same thing in Morrowind before it. One day, I actually decided I should finish the game and it didn't take long with the spell of invisibility+floating I'd learned to fly around with but all in all I found that exploring and meeting random sub-characters that the devs had actually bothered giving dialog to the most interesting part of those games.
I can't imagine a more boring waste of gaming time than most MMOs. I've even sunk hours into some of them myself, but I'd rather play a good story-based game with a plot and polish and development.
Its very very hard to achieve a good story in an MMO because you don't have players all at the same place and time in development.
An exception to this was the (excellent) Neverwinter Nights which had DM-hosted timed online games... where you joined all together at the beginning of a story and the session actually ended.
Recent games I've enjoyed online do a good job of splitting people by skill and experience, including MAG (online-only shooter) and Killzone 2 and 3 multiplayer. in Killzone 3 when you start out you'll inevitably end up in a game with other noobs and none of you have weapon upgrades, sniper rifles, rockets, etc. By the time you earn those upgrades, you're in games with other people who also have them.
The only reason I bought a couple games day-1 last year was to have access to the multiplayer while it was "hot". I knew I actually wanted to enjoy those games online and also knew I probably wouldn't be able to in six months or more when the price dropped.
For most games however, I buy them based on the single player campaign and nothing else. If they have an online component, great, but if I want to spend time playing with others, I break out Scrabble or Settlers of Catan or something.
Notes: - Gran Turismo 5 is better against real people who can drive than the computer. However, the real people who can drive are hard to find online and the "oops I slammed into you" people are too frequent. - Resistance 2 had a great online co-op experience, but unless you found a good group, you were dead. - MAG is actually worth playing despite not having a single player game. So was Warhawk.
Single player games aren't about playing "against" the computer to me, they're about a story.
There's a plot, characters, purpose, and all sorts of good stuff totally lacking in multiplayer gameplay.
Sure, online shooters can be fun, and I play enough of them, but I'd rather play through a good story like Uncharted or even God of War any day over a multiplayer-only frag-fest.
I hope they didn't consider fast-forwarding through the dialog to be skipping; I read a lot faster than the characters talk and use subtitles to get through those sequences faster.
I don't want them to remove the dialog because people "skip it" when in fact the text is just faster to go through.
Considering average playtime was estimated at 6-8 hours, its about the same as any other average story-driven adventure game. I never understood games with hours and hours of filler to extend the gameplay. God of War, Uncharted, Shadow of the Colossus, and many other games are under 10 hours of game play and well-received and engaging.
Looking in the Playstation Store I see a lot of games priced under $25 that are simply shorter or less polished than their counterparts. The polish does cost a lot more effort and talent, and I can see why a well-polished game costs more. That said, after a while, prices come down anyway. I just purchased Burnout Paradise (the entire game with add-ons) for under $10 on the PSN.
Go read the message boards for http://wurmonline.com/... there have been lots of complaints about things that were made too fast or easy. But its gamer base is a little odd too.
I've met several people who prefer cut-scenes with quicktime events because they're more engaging. Many people don't like cut-scenes because they feel pulled out of the action during them. I typically disagree and love my well-crafted Drake's Fortune cut-scenes for example, but I understood perfectly when I played Devil May Cry 4 and a long scene was an incredibly long fight that I would've prefered to be involved in.
I think the result is, the GP was right -- these are all debatable issues. Your assumptions are still not universal, and neither are mine.
Lots of games do that already (at least in text form).
Final Fantasy XIII for example gives you a little paragraph summary of what's been happening up until this point in the game whenever you restore a save. Several others do it that I've noticed, although I can't locate the names in my mind at the moment. I seem to recall that Dragon's Age sort of does it, but mixed in with the tips screens during loads.
PS despite the GP's comments, I lost my FFXIII save game and decided to start over from scratch and by skipping the cut scenes I managed to get to the final boss fight in one week of solid evening and weekend play. I can't say most people would do that, but the point is some games are only long the first time when you're learning the techniques and failing a lot.
The God of War games are a lot faster the second or third time through.
If the license isn't enforced, Hamstersoft has no rights at all due to Copyright.
You can't have your cake and eat it too -- the GPL lets you do things that would otherwise be illegal. If you want to take your chances, ignore it and go to court.
The local traffic data on Google Maps is nice, but the real-time alerts from fellow drivers on Waze are faster. Aggregating both would be nice but a licensing issue as I understand it.
I was driving home from a client's once in central Canada, and had plotted a route on my map that took a town road across a river and back onto the highway that was much shorter. Half way down the town road, it began to narrow and would have become a bumpy rock-filled field with no bridge (I checked from the other side after turning around and going the other way after all).
The map said there was a perfectly usable road there. Reality said there had been no such thing in quite some time.
Maps are only better than GPS in that they don't require batteries. Brains are still required in both cases.
Slashdot Mirror
I think he means "care about stability of their development platform" :)
Actually I found it to be quite the opposite. The running around and shooting and killing of things was too required by Bioshock.
Play Deus Ex sometime and you'll understand the difference. The story and backstory in Bioshock is there but the shooting and use of violence against you is easily 90% of the game. I wouldn't say its very different from FEAR in terms of violence vs. story data ... FEAR also has a lot of diary logs and extra reading materials and portions designed to make you think rather than react -- it was also fun.
I agree completely. I frequently wish my family members had Linux machines without admin privileges so that I could do remote support and rarely if ever have an actual software failure to deal with.
As it is, I get constant requests because they're able to thoroughly foul up their computers in a click or two.
With voice dialing?
The proximity of the phone to your head is irrelevant to most people and even driver safety. If you had an elastic holding the phone against the side of your face while you drove you wouldn't need a bluetooth headset.
The number of people I've met who are concerned with cell phone "radiation" are extremely limited ... and I don't recall any of their names. Purposefully.
Dwarf Fortress.
It ends every time you play it ... then you play again. :)
Its the modern version of Tetris for me now. I know I can do better than last time.
My wife never finishes a drink.
If she pours a glass of something, there's a half an inch at the bottom at least when she's "done".
If she opens a can of coke, it always has half or a third left behind.
It really doesn't matter what size the drink is, she always leaves some behind.
With gaming, I wonder if the 80% who don't finish a game would even finish the one hour version of those same games. I suspect people who don't finish games simply weren't engaged enough to bother, or found a sudden difficulty increase at the end that was too hard.
On that second point, I didn't complete GoW1 for ages because when I finally got to the Ares battle, I found the save-your-family battle too hard to complete the first time and couldn't be bothered. I'd beaten most of the game without dying but that sequence suddenly stuck it to me. I eventually went back to it and completed the game but I suspect similar reasoning for others as well.
I thought lightning dodging was brilliant. I didn't do it beyond about 20x, but a friend of mine did. It was brilliant because you don't miss out on anything substantive by not doing it, but it rewards those few obsessive compulsive types who are willing to try it.
Deus Ex was amazing and worth completing. It had its slow points, like an old movie, but it was overall very good and I actually finished it.
Bioshock bored me after about two hours however. Very repetitive and yet-another-fps for me. I felt like I was playing a graphically upgraded Half Life without the thought put into it.
I completed FFX and FFXIII but only in the sense that I beat the bosses. I never got all the ultimate weapon upgrades in FFX and I'm still working on the missions list in FFXIII.
I played through MGS4 twice. Great game, worth every hour of play time.
I'm still trying to get those completion medals for not being detected :)
Oh yeah, someone please patch with trophy support so I can brag when I do?
I had a 150hr save in Oblivion without ever reaching the fourth stage of the main plot. I enjoyed exploring dungeons a bit too much I suppose.
I did the same thing in Morrowind before it. One day, I actually decided I should finish the game and it didn't take long with the spell of invisibility+floating I'd learned to fly around with but all in all I found that exploring and meeting random sub-characters that the devs had actually bothered giving dialog to the most interesting part of those games.
I can't imagine a more boring waste of gaming time than most MMOs. I've even sunk hours into some of them myself, but I'd rather play a good story-based game with a plot and polish and development.
Its very very hard to achieve a good story in an MMO because you don't have players all at the same place and time in development.
An exception to this was the (excellent) Neverwinter Nights which had DM-hosted timed online games ... where you joined all together at the beginning of a story and the session actually ended.
Recent games I've enjoyed online do a good job of splitting people by skill and experience, including MAG (online-only shooter) and Killzone 2 and 3 multiplayer. in Killzone 3 when you start out you'll inevitably end up in a game with other noobs and none of you have weapon upgrades, sniper rifles, rockets, etc. By the time you earn those upgrades, you're in games with other people who also have them.
its a great system.
Everything you said there, agreed.
The only reason I bought a couple games day-1 last year was to have access to the multiplayer while it was "hot". I knew I actually wanted to enjoy those games online and also knew I probably wouldn't be able to in six months or more when the price dropped.
For most games however, I buy them based on the single player campaign and nothing else. If they have an online component, great, but if I want to spend time playing with others, I break out Scrabble or Settlers of Catan or something.
Notes:
- Gran Turismo 5 is better against real people who can drive than the computer. However, the real people who can drive are hard to find online and the "oops I slammed into you" people are too frequent.
- Resistance 2 had a great online co-op experience, but unless you found a good group, you were dead.
- MAG is actually worth playing despite not having a single player game. So was Warhawk.
Single player games aren't about playing "against" the computer to me, they're about a story.
There's a plot, characters, purpose, and all sorts of good stuff totally lacking in multiplayer gameplay.
Sure, online shooters can be fun, and I play enough of them, but I'd rather play through a good story like Uncharted or even God of War any day over a multiplayer-only frag-fest.
I hope they didn't consider fast-forwarding through the dialog to be skipping; I read a lot faster than the characters talk and use subtitles to get through those sequences faster.
I don't want them to remove the dialog because people "skip it" when in fact the text is just faster to go through.
The second is not the first. Replay the first a few times. Its much more fun.
Much awesomeness has been reduced to engaging one or two line quotes in history.
Being able to wax eloquent for hours does not make it necessary or even preferable to the succinct version.
Considering average playtime was estimated at 6-8 hours, its about the same as any other average story-driven adventure game. I never understood games with hours and hours of filler to extend the gameplay. God of War, Uncharted, Shadow of the Colossus, and many other games are under 10 hours of game play and well-received and engaging.
It already does to some degree.
Looking in the Playstation Store I see a lot of games priced under $25 that are simply shorter or less polished than their counterparts. The polish does cost a lot more effort and talent, and I can see why a well-polished game costs more. That said, after a while, prices come down anyway. I just purchased Burnout Paradise (the entire game with add-ons) for under $10 on the PSN.
Go read the message boards for http://wurmonline.com/ ... there have been lots of complaints about things that were made too fast or easy. But its gamer base is a little odd too.
I've met several people who prefer cut-scenes with quicktime events because they're more engaging. Many people don't like cut-scenes because they feel pulled out of the action during them. I typically disagree and love my well-crafted Drake's Fortune cut-scenes for example, but I understood perfectly when I played Devil May Cry 4 and a long scene was an incredibly long fight that I would've prefered to be involved in.
I think the result is, the GP was right -- these are all debatable issues. Your assumptions are still not universal, and neither are mine.
Lots of games do that already (at least in text form).
Final Fantasy XIII for example gives you a little paragraph summary of what's been happening up until this point in the game whenever you restore a save. Several others do it that I've noticed, although I can't locate the names in my mind at the moment. I seem to recall that Dragon's Age sort of does it, but mixed in with the tips screens during loads.
PS despite the GP's comments, I lost my FFXIII save game and decided to start over from scratch and by skipping the cut scenes I managed to get to the final boss fight in one week of solid evening and weekend play. I can't say most people would do that, but the point is some games are only long the first time when you're learning the techniques and failing a lot.
The God of War games are a lot faster the second or third time through.
If the license isn't enforced, Hamstersoft has no rights at all due to Copyright.
You can't have your cake and eat it too -- the GPL lets you do things that would otherwise be illegal. If you want to take your chances, ignore it and go to court.
The local traffic data on Google Maps is nice, but the real-time alerts from fellow drivers on Waze are faster. Aggregating both would be nice but a licensing issue as I understand it.
I was driving home from a client's once in central Canada, and had plotted a route on my map that took a town road across a river and back onto the highway that was much shorter. Half way down the town road, it began to narrow and would have become a bumpy rock-filled field with no bridge (I checked from the other side after turning around and going the other way after all).
The map said there was a perfectly usable road there. Reality said there had been no such thing in quite some time.
Maps are only better than GPS in that they don't require batteries. Brains are still required in both cases.