Thursday 17 June 2010

Nothing in Particular

Rankings of some Games:

Bioshock: 9.5
Bioshock 2: 8.9
Final Fantasy 7: 10
Final Fantasy X: 9.7
Zelda: Majora's Mask: 10
Heavy Rain: 8.5

Note - none of these are new to me except Heavy Rain. Actually I wanna talk about that game a little bit more. Never have I felt so tense and nervous in a game. It's great. Actually, that's the problem with pretty much any horror game, once you die for the first time in the game, nothing is really scary anymore. Heavy Rain's different because dying doesn't mean finishing, it just means changing. You want to keep these characters alive, cos if you don't, they are dead. It's just a shame that, even with the amazingly wide variety of ways to change the story, it has basically no replay value for me for some reason (though maybe I'm basing that on me trying to get a certain ending twice in a row and the game crashing on me, twice. That sucks cos that almost never happens to me).

I also can't really ignore how the game play aspects for the action segments really are awful if you're honest with yourself, as in the sections that aren't puzzles or trying to make you make very hard moral choices (which are great). But at the same time, it doesn't matter that the game play aspect for those sections are awful because the cinematic aspect is still there, and great. I'm not exactly sure what I would change if I was in charge of making a sequel to this game (not a sequel plot wise, it could be a completely different setting and characters). I'd probably include less annoying controls for things like walking (and more exploring rather than strictly chapter based) which would in turn make more massive possible story variations.

In fact, this is why I love Majora's Mask so much, how you play the same 3 days over and over but can completely change the character's schedules. When you reunite an engaged couple, just 5 minutes before the moon crashes down and destroys the planet, and you basically have to "reset" time to save yourself from being crushed, it makes you mad, that you went through all of that for essentially nothing, because that damn skull kid was just about to destroy the planet and the people you helped, and it makes you much more motivated to complete the game. It's also funny, cos while I was playing that game, I was sometimes like "I wonder what so and so character in the game is up to now" as if they were real people. Though I should stress I'm probably making that aspect of people having their own schedules sound much more complex than it is (but the game did come out 10 years ago). I'm just annoyed nothing else has really come out like that since, because it was the most I've ever felt like something is a real place (and have a problem with things like GTA, because for such a vast place and all the people, they essentially amount to people you can kill or not kill).

And what's worse is when people say "Majora's Mask was great except that it had that 3 day thing". It's like saying "Majora's Mask was great except that part where you move around and play the game". It IS the game.

Video game talk; my blog has hit a new low. Oh no!

5 comments:

zak said...

you mean new high my favrate video game talk i right about all the games i play in my diary, but yeah i'd have to agree with you on hevy rain the cinamatics are really good and the plot twists and stuff that you can make happen are great but i was also left with that feeling like i had been cheated when it came to game play although having said that if you played on hard there are some really hard parts to the game were things happen not as you would have planed which is good. but i feel like they should have factered in more "radom" events in the game like say for instace on the first leval when you put the plates down to hard she just says be more carfull, she says this every time you do this, they could have made it so if you keep doing it really hard one of the plates smashes and she says i told you to be carfull or if you keep doing it she gets really annoyed. also things seem to concret in the game like sertan event are always going to happen no matter what you do, other events in the game can be drasticly changed which is realistic but the small things you do seem to have no effect like me my mum and brother all wiped everything in manfreds and by my brother we were sure that we had got everything but yet still you dont get away and you have to go to the police station. i think what makes this story only make you want to play once is because the choices you make are the choices you always wan't to make and you don't really want to do other things just to see what happens, although i do what to play through killing all the charicters and another time to make all the bad choices. i think that what makes majuras mask better in a scence is that you know what people are doing and if you don't help everyone you feel the need to keep replaying, mission games are often more addictive then story games as well because you feel achivment one you help them (not that you don't with haivy rain just that you can see how exactlly to help them). what i alwas imagan in majuras mask is that when you reset time there are loads of yous from previuse plays helping people while you help more people in the game that you are currently playing so i don't get that, shit i did that for nothing feeling because i think yeah all of that has happend now and im gonna go defeat that mask boy and everythink will be good. as for bioshock one and two i think they are eqal scoring, and i think that as a game majoras mask is better then haivy rain.

Jack Bz said...

Ahahahahaha @ the writing about games in your diary thing.

HAHAHA, I soooo tried to smash the plates too. I was also hoping that when you kiss your wife without brushing your teeth, she'd say something, but she doesn't.

And you can wipe everything at Manfred's and get away, keep in mind to wipe things that lauren touches too. And also, when you get away, it'll zoom in on something you forgot to wipe if you didn't wipe it, and zoom in on manfred if you got everything.

I got a trophy called "the perfect crime" for having the shop keeper, lauren, jayden, madison, kramer and ethan all die, wiping all the prints clean at manfreds, and also getting away with the crime without being caught. It's a hilarious idea for a trophy, I think.

I think the best part of the game is probably the cutting finger trial. That was actually genius, and the way ethan screams when you do it. I actually wanted to fucking CRY.

I replayed Bioshock recently on survivor difficulty on the PS3 without vita chambers. It's actually insanely hard, I died on the first splicer you come across just before getting electrobolt. In fact, the first big daddies you come across I just plain couldn't kill, even with 9 health packs sometimes (took me 20 times to kill the first bouncer, mainly cos his charge kills you in 1 hit even if you have full health).

But then when i got security bullseye, you become unstopable. I don't know how i missed its greatness before, you can just get caught by security, then throw security bullseye at a big daddy and keep doing this to kill them with no consequences. I wouldn't have been able to beat the big daddies early on without this.

I'd say Bioshock 2 did heavily improve on the gameplay. But Bioshock 1s characters (especially fontaine and ryan being MUCH better than Lamb), story, audio diaries, atmosphere. All much better. When atlas says "good WORK, boyo" and starts laughing manically just before the twist. I got SHIVERS.

zak said...

aha yeah same its like a shit storm is comming when he says "good WORK, boyo". i felt the same about the poisen though as well like sacraficing himself, because at lest with the cutting the finger off i made it so that he would exspirence the lest pain possabal. also that is a great trothy idea and i told you the game play in bioshock 2 was better but you wouldn't bellive me you said HOW, what is better about it is way to easy. look who comes craling back on his words unlike me and i everybody cares everbody understands, (but when i said that i actully meant i didn't understand but i don't think it is second or thired last anymore) and before you say it i know what you are going to say yeah what ever as if you meant the other song. but it is the truth so... in responce FUCK YOU SHUT IT YOU WHORE

Jack Bz said...

Nuh uh, I even made posts on the bioshock forum saying the gameplay was better before you even got the game :@!! I DID say it was easier though, and stand by that. You simply have better stuff while the enemies are mostly the same, and the big sister doesn't appear enough times to really make the game "harder".

zak said...

but i supose it it is a good follow on from the last game because the big daddys are ment to be really strong and everything so it makes sense that you are much toughther then the avrage bogabo also i am not commenting more today cuz i have an exam tommorow which i need to revise for :( but see you tommorow at the cineamar and get in contact with tj and tell him to bring me teken 6 at the cineamar and make sure anthony brings me my psp