True Gaming I recently finished To The Moon, and despite liking it, I was surprised by how flawed it is |
- I recently finished To The Moon, and despite liking it, I was surprised by how flawed it is
- Did any of you ever have a "linearity sucks" phase? If so, when did you get out of it, and how?
- Is the cost of making games really going up, or are they just getting bigger budgets?
- Does anyone get really tired while playing video games?
- Are our gaming standards and expectations rising or falling?
- Different ways of handling lore, back story, and world building. What makes it effective/not effective?
- Books/published essays on Video Games as an art form
- PC gaming chairs - worth it or not?
- To what extent is it fair to compare Skyrim to Breath of the Wild?
- First Episode - THE LIFE OF A GAMER
- What if Xbox One Family of systems, could possibly turn into a Windows 10 PC? Specifically Xbox One X!
| I recently finished To The Moon, and despite liking it, I was surprised by how flawed it is Posted: 06 Dec 2017 07:01 AM PST [Contains spoilers for To The Moon and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. If you haven't played either, do so and eventually come back] Okay since I'm going to talk mostly about what I didn't like about To The Moon, let me preface by saying this: I really liked Johnny and River's story. It's sad, tragic despite the good ending, and it deserves the praise it received. The music is also spot on, which makes the experience all the more satisfying. But. There were two things that were clear to me as the credits were rolling, and whenever I saw it recommended, no one mentioned anything of the sort, so I was a bit surprised by them. The first is that To The Moon is a game where the "game" parts don't add anything to the experience. Having to wander through the memories looking for stuff to click on isn't just annoying, it feels like an obstacle slowing down your access to the juicy parts of the story. It doesn't even provide any real sense of exploration and discovery, since any detail contextual to the story is necessary to progress in it. I wasn't the biggest fan of Gone Home, but at least there discovering who Kaitlin and her family are and what they went through over the years is left mostly to yourself. There's no arbitrary limit forcing you to click this and read that before progressing to the next room. Or an even better example would be Brothers, another story-focused game, but one where the gameplay is integral to the narration - it just wouldn't be the same thing to be told or shown the story; the game actually makes a point of making you experience how fundamental cooperation between the two brothers is, and this in turn makes the older brother's death much more impactful. There's nothing even remotely close to that in To The Moon, a game where whatever gameplay is there feels a lot like a forced addition or an afterthought, and as a result the experience suffers for it. To The Moon is a game with a beautiful story, but a story I can't help but feel would have been better served if it was a book or an animated movie. And I want to make it clear that I'm not putting the blame on Freebird for making it a game; games are relatively cheap to make and have the potential to reach a much wider audience more easily, so given the limited resources I assume they had, it was the best choice they could make. But I still stand by my point: To The Moon's story gets no value added for being part of a game. The second is the rift in writing quality between Johnny & Rivers and the two doctors, Rosalene & Watts. The former manage to be meaningful, emotional, to make you long for the next part in their story despite the brevity of their dialogues.The latter, on the other hand, are often inane, pointless, unnecessary, if not outright cringeworthy; I have no idea who thought it would have been nice to have Watts be such a fan of pop culture references, but it clashes hard with what the game is trying to express. And it's not just that, obviously; their incessant bickering and sarcastic remarks quickly turned them into two of the characters I found most annoying in any work of fiction, and as a result their "growth" and dramatic moments when Rosalene decides to "erase" River (couldn't she just explain her plan to Watts and save me that horrible obstacle runner part...?) didn't work at all for me. How can I feel immersed when the characters I'm supposed to be playing as are two unlikable jerks? And in this case, the issue is not even the fact that they tried to add some levity to what is a sad story. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but it needs to be done well. Your Name is a movie I watched recently where the fun and entertaining part are excellently balanced and don't clash in the least with its more dramatic and melancholic moments. To The Moon, on the other hand, thinks throwing a "Kamehameha" line in the middle of a story about illness and personal tragedy is a good way to keep the reader entertained. Comedy is hard, and as a result it sometimes requires a bit more effort than just spitting random one-liners. Now despite all this, I enjoyed To The Moon, and would recommend it to anyone that asked me. But I was also disappointed by how, despite its undeniable virtues, it feels like a game that sorely lacks cohesiveness, and suffers greatly for it. [link] [comments]  |
| Did any of you ever have a "linearity sucks" phase? If so, when did you get out of it, and how? Posted: 05 Dec 2017 09:25 PM PST Lately, I've been seeing a lot of backlash towards open world games that it's hard to imagine that there was a time starting in the late Seventh Generation where it seemed like open world was the future for everything, and everyone wanted everything to be open world. Linearity seemed like a thing of the past that everyone had to avoid like the plague. I remember when I was caught up in it during the early part of that period. Zelda's push for tighter storytelling seemed like backwards thinking, and it didn't help that big names like Final Fantasy 13 and later Call of Duty games received backlash for similar reasons. I got out of it by remembering that the Super Mario Galaxy duology, two of the most well-crafted platformers of this time (not that there were many notable ones) didn't go for open world and decided to make straight, focused, series of obstacles like all Mario games. (Of course, I will still agree that the Wii years were the some of the worst for Zelda, but for different reasons only somewhat related to linearity) Did anyone here go through something similar? [link] [comments]  |
| Is the cost of making games really going up, or are they just getting bigger budgets? Posted: 06 Dec 2017 03:30 PM PST Something a lot of the big games coverage websites often mention is how the cost of making video games has gone up in the last 10 years or so. Is that true? What numbers have been made available that show this? People often mention it in conversations about microtransactions and the current cost of a game to the consumer. Saying that since costs to make games have gone up that they should either raise prices or consumers should be okay with the addition of microtransactions. I don't really see how the cost of making games could go up so drastically as to require a longer tail on their products or a higher entry price. [link] [comments]  |
| Does anyone get really tired while playing video games? Posted: 06 Dec 2017 03:23 PM PST I can't find any information on the subject, but playing video games makes me feel mentally exhausted and I could just fall asleep. I'm not bored with my games. I love playing games. It just feels like they make me sleepy after a little bit. I take breaks, eat healthy, stretch, and everything else that gets suggested to stay healthy while gaming, but I feel like it's something else. I had ADHD and my dr also says I'm a little aspie, but when I looked it up, the articles I found talked more about gaming addiction than getting sleepy while gaming. Anyone else experience this or know what may cause this? [link] [comments]  |
| Are our gaming standards and expectations rising or falling? Posted: 05 Dec 2017 11:44 PM PST We have all heard about how EA is killing video games, and we have all heard, or participated, in the hate directed toward EA and other companies such as Ubisoft, Activision etc. for rushing games, paid content, loot boxes and milking franchises by releases and re-releases on an annual basis like clockwork. On the other hand, we see publishers like CD Projekt, From Software, and Guerilla Games who steer away from making decisions that hurt their audience, focusing on making each new game and DLC unique and worth the price. Nintendo also subscribes to this camp for the most part. And finally, we have all the casual games that dominate the smartphone scene, which claim to be free to play but inevitably demands your money if you want to advance in the game. The examples are endless, from puzzle games to strategic guild-based online games, you need to pay to stand half a chance of being useful. Lords Mobile and Vikings, I'm looking at you. So, are microtransactions, paid DLCs and loot boxes the future, or is gaming going back to the model of making you have to play, not pay, in order to progress with the story? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 06 Dec 2017 12:49 PM PST I was playing the game Event[0], which is a first person adventure game where you explore a derelict spacecraft and interact with the AI computer on board. I haven't gotten too far into the game, but up to the point I'm at, discovering the lore and the backstory is part of the actual gameplay - the mystery of what happened here is the story. Then I thought about a game like Skyrim, a first person RPG, that also utilises environmental clues, but also leans heavily on books being left behind, NPCs explaining lore, and flavour text on items to tell you about where they came from. When you plumb a dungeon, you can learn about its place in the world through text. On the other hand, there are games like Inside, a 2.5D sidescroller, that has no text or dialogue at all. There's a rich world, but it only provides you the visuals and relies on the player to fill in the blanks about what's actually happening. Personally, I've found myself drawn more to the kind of worldbuilding and lore in games like Inside, where things are presented but not necessarily explained, so I get to participate in the storytelling. While it can also be cool to find a book that gives context to the environmental storytelling, there is also a bit of a downside - once you know the 'truth,' that's it. You can form your own theories outside of that, but it's already been 'answered.' But there are challenges, of course, with the kind of open ended lore that Inside and to a lesser extend a game like Breath of the Wild presents. It can be too obscure to the point where it's hard to draw any kind of theories because what you're looking at is so abstract or seemingly indecipherable. Questions:
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| Books/published essays on Video Games as an art form Posted: 06 Dec 2017 03:21 AM PST The title is kinda self-explanatory. I'm trying to find books on this topic. I know requests are not exactly the point of this sub, but given the specifics of the topic, I guess it's the best place to find what I need. Thanks [link] [comments]  |
| PC gaming chairs - worth it or not? Posted: 06 Dec 2017 11:14 AM PST What do you guys think? I've been looking at these gaming chairs for a while, and since the holidays are coming up, i'm hoping to catch some decent sale on these. Do you guys think it's worth the money? I was looking at the DXracer brand but if you have any suggestion or opinions, feel free to share. Just doesn't seem worth all that money... or is it? [link] [comments]  |
| To what extent is it fair to compare Skyrim to Breath of the Wild? Posted: 06 Dec 2017 07:28 AM PST I've put in 70+ hours in both, and while I would never compare Skyrim to earlier Zelda games, it seems like pushing for the Assassin's Creed/Ubisoft open world formula in BotW starts to make the comparisons more plausible. Some seed questions:
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| First Episode - THE LIFE OF A GAMER Posted: 06 Dec 2017 07:43 AM PST Check out the first episode on my brand new gaming channel! Hope you guys enjoy watching it, feel free to leave constructive comments and useful feedback! Thanks in advance!! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 05 Dec 2017 04:30 PM PST Does the chips allow this to happen being unlocked at Microsoft level... Again left with the question is it possible in the first place? Questions I would love answered by Microsoft themselves! DigitalFoundry I'm calling you out to ask Microsoft themselves. [link] [comments]  |
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