General gaming discussion

Osmosis Jones

Osmosis Jones wrote: »

Speaking of Souls-likes I've been playing The Surge and having a lot of fun with it, really love the level design and the body part targeting mechanic.

I've nearly bought that game so many times, but the difficulty keeps putting me off. (I have never and will never play any of the Dark Souls games for that reason too.)

In reality, how hard is it?

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

I've nearly bought that game so many times, but the difficulty keeps putting me off. (I have never and will never play any of the Dark Souls games for that reason too.)

In reality, how hard is it?

Bosses are poor vs other games and pretty much all play the same with one or two exceptions. 99% of the deaths you'll have are to regular mobs and that will be a fair few.

I had fun with it though and I believe there is even some new DLC due this week

one armed dwarf

What do people here use for release day deliveries? Moving back from the UK soon and want to get RDR, amazon don't seem able to deliver on the day.

Digital download not really an option

Retr0gamer

Deleted User wrote: »

I've nearly bought that game so many times, but the difficulty keeps putting me off. (I have never and will never play any of the Dark Souls games for that reason too.)

In reality, how hard is it?

The press has a lot to blame for putting people off dark souls. They aren't crushingly difficult games meant to belittle the player. They're challenging but also any person is capable of beating them given enough time investment. They only have that reputation due to how much games hold your hand these days. There's much more difficult games from previous generations.

Also there's a hidden easy mode for people that struggle. The multilayer makes things so much easier.

It's a shame it's put people off the best gaming experience of the last decade.

gimli2112

Re: PS5 backwards compatability


When asked why the PlayStation 4 doesn't let gamers play their ageing PS3 discs, Head of PlayStation Europe Jim Ryan said the feature is rarely used.
Speaking to TIME Magazine in June 2017, Ryan said: "When we've dabbled with backwards compatibility, I can say it is one of those features that is much requested, but not actually used much. That, and I was at a Gran Turismo event recently where they had PS1, PS2, PS3 and PS4 games, and the PS1 and the PS2 games, they looked ancient, like why would anybody play this?

What are peoples views on this? I think Jimmy Ryan's being a tad disingenuous saying it's a feature that's rarely used when there's little to no option to use it. PS Now is not a success Jimmy. Personally would love to be able to play the old CODs online and every now and then other games rather than purchasing a remaster.

gimli2112

Retr0gamer wrote: »

The press has a lot to blame for putting people off dark souls. They aren't crushingly difficult games meant to belittle the player. They're challenging but also any person is capable of beating them given enough time investment. They only have that reputation due to how much games hold your hand these days. There's much more difficult games from previous generations.

Also there's a hidden easy mode for people that struggle. The multilayer makes things so much easier.

It's a shame it's put people off the best gaming experience of the last decade.

I spent the entire first play through of BB expecting to quit at any moment when it got too difficult. It never happened and is now one of my favourite games. Can't believe I was put off it for years by its "notorious" difficulty.

Stone Deaf 4evr

gimli2112 wrote: »

Re: PS5 backwards compatability


When asked why the PlayStation 4 doesn't let gamers play their ageing PS3 discs, Head of PlayStation Europe Jim Ryan said the feature is rarely used.
Speaking to TIME Magazine in June 2017, Ryan said: "When we've dabbled with backwards compatibility, I can say it is one of those features that is much requested, but not actually used much. That, and I was at a Gran Turismo event recently where they had PS1, PS2, PS3 and PS4 games, and the PS1 and the PS2 games, they looked ancient, like why would anybody play this?

What are peoples views on this? I think Jimmy Ryan's being a tad disingenuous saying it's a feature that's rarely used when there's little to no option to use it. PS Now is not a success Jimmy. Personally would love to be able to play the old CODs online and every now and then other games rather than purchasing a remaster.

Its hard to know how much to believe the PR speak, but it seems like Backwards compatibility is very successful on Xbox anyway.
That being said - and when you specifically mention call of duty, the online elements are essentially unsupported by the publishers and devs, so expect plenty of hacked lobbies, boosting etc.

gimli2112

Stone Deaf 4evr wrote: »

Its hard to know how much to believe the PR speak, but it seems like Backwards compatibility is very successful on Xbox anyway.
That being said - and when you specifically mention call of duty, the online elements are essentially unsupported by the publishers and devs, so expect plenty of hacked lobbies, boosting etc.

ah yeah it's the source of my greatest gaming frustration but still better than waiting 25 minutes to get into a (hacked) lobby. If it was backwards compatible there'd be more eejits like me willing to play it. I think if it happens I'd start a new character rather than risk getting deranked.

I would have thought it was very successful on x-box.

EoinHef

gimli2112 wrote: »

Re: PS5 backwards compatability


When asked why the PlayStation 4 doesn't let gamers play their ageing PS3 discs, Head of PlayStation Europe Jim Ryan said the feature is rarely used.
Speaking to TIME Magazine in June 2017, Ryan said: "When we've dabbled with backwards compatibility, I can say it is one of those features that is much requested, but not actually used much. That, and I was at a Gran Turismo event recently where they had PS1, PS2, PS3 and PS4 games, and the PS1 and the PS2 games, they looked ancient, like why would anybody play this?

What are peoples views on this? I think Jimmy Ryan's being a tad disingenuous saying it's a feature that's rarely used when there's little to no option to use it. PS Now is not a success Jimmy. Personally would love to be able to play the old CODs online and every now and then other games rather than purchasing a remaster.

This is Sony speak in a nutshell imo.

They act as if theres no value to the consumer/customer to save themselves the hassle/cost of implementing the feature and act like they are doing their playerbase a favour.

Recent examples would be cross play and EA Access. Backwards compatibility is just another on that list.

Isn't there stats to back up the assumption that it's not as used as people think?
Me personally, I the backwards compat is great feature on Xbox but have only really used it for a couple of games that I've played to completion.

Stone Deaf 4evr

Fred The Red wrote: »

Isn't there stats to back up the assumption that it's not as used as people think?
Me personally, I the backwards compat is great feature on Xbox but have only really used it for a couple of games that I've played to completion.

same, I've only used it to finish games that I had on the go around the time the xb1 launched, and the occasional title like dead space that I hadnt played when it first came out.

CatInABox

I'd ignore that Sony guy. I'd be very surprised if the next gen isn't backwards compatible, and this is just something that they'd say because they currently don't support it. It'll be a lot easier to do BC on the next gen as they'll both be x86 again.

A lot of the recent belief that BC on Xbox wasn't used came about because of an article on Ars Technica, which showed less that two percent of users used it. Loads of articles came out based on that research, but it was corrected a week or so later, as the figures where wildly off (They had "My Games and Apps" at around 6%, when the actual figure was closer to 70%). Of course, all the sites that ran an article on the original story didn't update theirs.

The Xbox BC has been responsible for lifting 360 games into the top ten sales, so I think it's a success for some games, and not for others. I'd much prefer to have it than not, and the work that they've done with some of the games is incredible, RDR in 4k at a steady 30fps is just amazing. They've even managed to get some of the original Xbox games looking great, like Morrowind.

Penn

I've always thought of it as a nice to have, but the value of BC comes in the first few years of a console launch when new games are a bit more scarce. Introducing BC to the PS4 now would be a bit of a waste. But when the PS5 launches, the ability to play at least PS4 games will be vital to its success at this stage imo, especially given the extent to which Microsoft has been bringing in BC.

Jerichoholic

PS Now being available completely contradicts that BS by Sony.

Jerichoholic

Jerichoholic wrote: »

PS Now being available completely contradicts that BS by Sony.

Not to mention the PS1 Classic...

CastorTroy

If people don't want to play old games, why are there remasters? BC would mean they can't make money from porting those games. I've still got my PS3 set up under the tv

CastorTroy

CastorTroy wrote: »

If people don't want to play old games, why are there remasters? BC would mean they can't make money from porting those games. I've still got my PS3 set up under the tv

Ultimately it's up to the publisher I expect.

Greyfox

Retr0gamer wrote: »

The press has a lot to blame for putting people off dark souls.. any person is capable of beating them given enough time investment. They only have that reputation due to how much games hold your hand these days. There's much more difficult games from previous generations.

It's a shame it's put people off the best gaming experience of the last decade.

Na, the press are right. theres loads of better games out there. d souls/bborne is harder than most normal games played on hard which is annoying for people who don't have time to die 20 times before they can be expected to know how to progress. The reality it there's more great games now than years ago so lots of people don't have the time for difficult games which is why most games have difficulty settings. The game is not designed for all gamers and I feel it's fair for this to be a general criticism

Retr0gamer

Greyfox wrote: »

Na, the press are right. theres loads of better games out there. d souls/bborne is harder than most normal games played on hard which is annoying for people who don't have time to die 20 times before they can be expected to know how to progress. The reality it there's more great games now than years ago so lots of people don't have the time for difficult games which is why most games have difficulty settings. The game is not designed for all gamers and I feel it's fair for this to be a general criticism

As I said, the game is designed for all gamers. all you need is patience. It also has a difficulty selection, multiplayer which makes the game so much more manageable.

I can see why people prefer to just brute force a game with recharging health and generous checkpoints but it's all so hollow for me. When I sat down to play Demon's Souls after importing it it was a revelation. I wasn't falling out of love with videogames, I was just sick of them trying to ape cinema. Demon's souls on the other hand was an actual videogame, the player versus the game designer, trying to figure out the levels and enemies put in front of them.

I'd actually take the harsh but fair gameplay of Souls over the hardest difficulty levels of say uncharted, Halo or other triple A games which are an exercise in frustration and spending most of your time cowering behind a wall. Boring.

Anyway I've heard too many stories of people bouncing off the first hour of a souls game only to come back and fall in love with the series after giving it another try :pac:

And to play devil's advocate to the press, it was the excellent eurogamer review of Demon's Souls that sold me on the game, so much so I spent 90 euro to import it as it sounded so weird and interesting. And a lot of the blame has to lie with the publisher with Bamco's 'Prepare to Die' campaign.

Potential-Monke

RopeDrink wrote: »

...but it surely can't be difficult to strike a solid balance between functional and fun gameplay vs the cinematic reward. It is possible to do BOTH right.

But some do. The recent God of War is a fine example. Granted, for Souls fans, the combat may not be as entertaining, and it's definitely not as hard/unforgiving, but it has solid combat with amazing cinematics and a near-single shot camera angle. But, as you and others have mentioned, it depends on if that game clicks with you.

I don't like hand holding, too many games are ruined because of it, but at the same time, due to so many amazing games coming out, I like others don't have the time or patience to stick with an unforgiving game in the hope that it may click someday. I've tried DS1, 2 & 3 and Bloodborne, and i've given them a few hours each. If a game hasn't clicked after a few hours, for me, it never will. But at the same time, I like to have an idea of who I am, what i'm doing and why. Hollow Knight, for all it's amazing gameplay, has not held me as much for this reason. You're doing something for some reason, not enough to keep me interested. So it has now been replaced with AC: Odyssey, a game which will hold your hand or gently point you in the direction you may want to go.

And I've tried them a few times. Similarly, the first time I played Dragon Age, it didn't click with me at all. Hated it. For some reason I gave it another go a few months later and it's one of my favourite games now. But I just can't get into Souls-like games. Feel like i'm wasting time I could be spending on another game.

But it's all subjective, so while some people love to play Souls games, figure out the patterns, and keep at it death after death, others prefer a story with gameplay and less forgiving mechanics.

Mickeroo

In terms of raw difficulty, the higher difficulties in god of war are much harder than the souls games imo funnily enough.

Stone Deaf 4evr

Potential-Monke wrote: »

But it's all subjective, so while some people love to play Souls games, figure out the patterns, and keep at it death after death, others prefer a story with gameplay and less forgiving mechanics.

https://ie.ign.com/articles/2011/09/30/dark-souls-review

it was that review that prompted me to give dark souls a try - that and getting it free on games with gold, but I was so glad I gave it a shot, Its become one of my favorite games ever.

Greyfox

Mickeroo wrote: »

In terms of raw difficulty, the higher difficulties in god of war are much harder than the souls games imo funnily enough.

You still get generous checkpoints though which make a big difference. It's hard to justify repeating whole sections of a game when you also have a backlog of other games.

johnny_ultimate

RopeDrink wrote: »

Surely can't be difficult to strike a solid balance between functional and fun gameplay vs the cinematic reward. It is possible to do BOTH right.

I'm not a game designer, but based on the evidence we have, I'm going to suggest it's very difficult indeed!

How do you tell a compelling, propulsive and pacy story while allowing the player to explore and proceed at their leisure? How do you hit story beats with the impact they deserve when you can't guarantee all players will get there at the same time or in the same way, and across a game that may take dozens if not hundreds of hours to finish? How do you achieve consistent characterisation (outside a few basic archetypes) while balancing that with long chunks of gameplay (often combat heavy)? How do you allow player choice while also telling a powerful story with pre-determined outcomes? How do you tell a story with real stakes, while also having the player control a superhuman who can just restart from a checkpoint whenever they die? Can you reflect and explore story / character developments through gameplay? When do you want the player to have a choice, and when do you not?

How do you get the player to see what you want them to see, when you want them to see it without wrestling control away - or what are the consequences when you do wrestle control away? Do you show something in a cutscene that the player can't do in-game, and will the player be pissed off if you do? Hell, do you have the money and resources to properly illustrate a character's emotional reaction, or will they just look awkward and dead-eyed? Does your art style serve both the gameplay and the story? Do you put in a 'skip cutscene' option :pac:?

You could go on and on. Personally I think you see a lot of games - even very good ones! - unable to fully or even partially tackle these things, even though they do need to balance gameplay and more 'cinematic' storytelling to deliver the experience both the designers and players want. Look at the amount of developers that find themselves relying on crutches like audio logs or an avalanche of 'lore' text - neither exactly elegant ways of world-building. Far more games are pretty terrible at storytelling than are not.

Dark Souls gets a lot right because it makes the story a sort of puzzle to be teased out, kinda like the mechanics themselves. A lot of shade is thrown at 'walking simulators' for their relative of traditional gameplay, but their focus on uniquely interactive forms of storytelling (film can't allow a viewer to explore an environment meticulously and at their own pace) mean they can often tell much more controlled, concise stories than their peers who have to add a whole lot of gameplay into the mix. There are games that rightly don't mess around with story at all beyond the bare minimum; there are ones that come up with clever new mechanics to tell stories.

There's never one size fits all to these things, and it's always a good thing that developers are trying their own style across all manner of varied approaches. But it's definitely a hard thing to get right, in particular for anyone who wants to make something that'd be as satisfying to play as it would be to watch (or vice versa).

Maxpfizer

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I'm not a game designer, but based on the evidence we have, I'm going to suggest it's very difficult indeed!

How do you tell a compelling, propulsive and pacy story while allowing the player to explore and proceed at their leisure? How do you hit story beats with the impact they deserve when you can't guarantee all players will get there at the same time or in the same way, and across a game that may take dozens if not hundreds of hours to finish? How do you achieve consistent characterisation (outside a few basic archetypes) while balancing that with long chunks of gameplay (often combat heavy)? How do you allow player choice while also telling a powerful story with pre-determined outcomes? How do you tell a story with real stakes, while also having the player control a superhuman who can just restart from a checkpoint whenever they die? Can you reflect and explore story / character developments through gameplay? When do you want the player to have a choice, and when do you not?

How do you get the player to see what you want them to see, when you want them to see it without wrestling control away - or what are the consequences when you do wrestle control away? Do you show something in a cutscene that the player can't do in-game, and will the player be pissed off if you do? Hell, do you have the money and resources to properly illustrate a character's emotional reaction, or will they just look awkward and dead-eyed? Does your art style serve both the gameplay and the story? Do you put in a 'skip cutscene' option :pac:?

You could go on and on. Personally I think you see a lot of games - even very good ones! - unable to fully or even partially tackle these things, even though they do need to balance gameplay and more 'cinematic' storytelling to deliver the experience both the designers and players want. Look at the amount of developers that find themselves relying on crutches like audio logs or an avalanche of 'lore' text - neither exactly elegant ways of world-building. Far more games are pretty terrible at storytelling than are not.

Dark Souls gets a lot right because it makes the story a sort of puzzle to be teased out, kinda like the mechanics themselves. A lot of shade is thrown at 'walking simulators' for their relative of traditional gameplay, but their focus on uniquely interactive forms of storytelling (film can't allow a viewer to explore an environment meticulously and at their own pace) mean they can often tell much more controlled, concise stories than their peers who have to add a whole lot of gameplay into the mix. There are games that rightly don't mess around with story at all beyond the bare minimum; there are ones that come up with clever new mechanics to tell stories.

There's never one size fits all to these things, and it's always a good thing that developers are trying their own style across all manner of varied approaches. But it's definitely a hard thing to get right, in particular for anyone who wants to make something that'd be as satisfying to play as it would be to watch (or vice versa).

I think that gaming is really held back by the idea that the main purpose is
cinematic storytelling and as a result you have a lot of games trying to be movies and pretty much getting a lot of praise when they manage to achieve that on some level.

This also ties into an ongoing focus on graphics. Indie games aren't really respected as much as they ought to be and a lot of that is down to just lacking the graphical polish of AAA. Many folks are still stuck in the days of "does it have good graphics".

So when you put those together it's like people are looking for something like the Marvel movies but with a playable component.

We are getting there for sure. The new Spider-Man game and the newest God of War are good examples of that but I am not sure that they are good "games". They are half decent stories with good art direction and kind of half-arsed combat and puzzle elements that allow them to still be classed as games.

I saw a lot of people complaining about the lack of story in Zelda BotW and Mario Odyssey and I think it shows where a lot of the audience is at. I think these games were never very interested in telling a traditional cinematic story.

I am old and so I always saw the "story" as a kind of excuse for why this game even exists. Oh you have to save the princess or aliens are coming to destroy the planet or the Lemmings just want to get to the exit.

Now it seems a bit backwards in comparison where the story and the world building is all plotted out and then a game is kind of built around that.

So you end up with a bit of both. An OK story that can't really rival the best cinema has to offer. An OK game that won't retain it's appeal long term.

Potential-Monke

Again though, it's all subjective. Games will have to try real hard to beat this years God of War as my GOTY, and even though RDR2 could do it, I don't think it will because it's too different of a game. I don't think there will be anything coming out this year to beat it, unless Ghost of Tsushima does release this year, but I don't think that will happen.

The older I'm getting, the more of a story I want in my games. I still have games that don't really have a story and I play, ie: Hollow Knight. There is a story there, but it's the reason for playing the game rather than the drawing factor, like Max said above, it's there as a reason to play but not intrinsic to the gameplay. I think GoW got both, excellent story and excellent gameplay. But it's what you're into. I loved the story in the original GoW games, as simple as it may have been. But I don't want realism, I don't want games to remind me of real life, this is why I play, to escape real life and play a story that can't exist in the real world.

I know a lot of people disagree with me, but the story in the Darksiders games are perfect for me. Some people will see it as sloppy or lazy writing, but it's ticking all my boxes. And I'm kinda happy I don't know more about journalism or the technicalities behind the gameplay, as I think it would ruin some games for me, knowing that the reason x happened or was said was due to bad writing. The games I like take me out of this world and on a journey, and I can't ask for more. Dark Souls et al cause too much repetitiveness, and that takes me out of the game world and story and ruins a game for me.

Robert ninja

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I'm not a game designer, but based on the evidence we have, I'm going to suggest it's very difficult indeed!

Depends on the game. This was brought up regarding cinematic games? Such games' studios don't seem to have much of a hard time balancing gameplay and cinematics... they very clearly show which one they want a lot more of (for a game). Balance doesn't seem to be a huge problem to them to solve as it would to a studio making something like a MMORPG.

Greyfox

Maxpfizer wrote: »

I think that gaming is really held back by the idea that the main purpose is
cinematic storytelling and as a result you have a lot of games trying to be movies and pretty much getting a lot of praise when they manage to achieve that on some level.

This also ties into an ongoing focus on graphics. Indie games aren't really respected as much as they ought to be and a lot of that is down to just lacking the graphical polish of AAA. Many folks are still stuck in the days of "does it have good graphics".

So when you put those together it's like people are looking for something like the Marvel movies but with a playable component.

I saw a lot of people complaining about the lack of story in Zelda BotW and Mario Odyssey and I think it shows where a lot of the audience is at. I think these games were never very interested in telling a traditional cinematic story.

I am old and so I always saw the "story" as a kind of excuse for why this game even exists. Oh you have to save the princess or aliens are coming to destroy the planet or the Lemmings just want to get to the exit.

Now it seems a bit backwards in comparison where the story and the world building is all plotted out and then a game is kind of built around that.

So you end up with a bit of both. An OK story that can't really rival the best cinema has to offer. An OK game that won't retain it's appeal long term.

Its not really held back, its more what a lot of people expect and if the Witcher 3 can mix a brilliant and immersive story with gameplay that has tons of depth why cant others do this. It's not that there not respected, a lot of people just dont pick indie games as they end up costing the same amount as a reduced price AAA game so its easy to assume the discouted AAA game is a better choice as it usually looks better. Everyone seems to want a game to have everything and if Zelda botw had a better main story I feel it would be easily the best game ever made as it was gameplay perfection and had the best open world ever. For me when a game has great storytelling then it's a product better than almost every film as games can immerse you in a story like no other form of entertainment can. Im very happy when the story and worldbuilding is done first. The thing is games can tell an amazing story and produce a world where you felt like you lived in it.

Retr0gamer

But when you think about it you can count the amount of games with amazing stories on one hand. The vast majority of games that get praised for their wroting never aspire to be more than trying to ape joss whedon or ruse above an average marvel film.

There's very few that I'd place up with the greats of cinema and literature. Silent Hill 2, Tactics Ogre and even the last of us which is as close to Oscar bait as we have gotten. And even all of them have the same flaw. They can't marry storytelling to game play and tell it through cutscenes. Sometimes spoiling the flow of the game. Or having actions in game that don't match the action's in the non interactive elements like last of us.

Very few games manage to get that right. Journey being one that springs to mind.

I'd just love if game designers could let games be games again. Let the game play do the talking. Rocket knight adventures, gunstar heroes, super Mario world or even the recent Doom don't need writing as they are masterpieces of game design.

There's room for both but I wish there were more triple A games like Doom. That was such a breath of fresh air. Nothing but pure fun and game play systems. A game for people that like video games.

Osmosis Jones

Games like Doom 2016 don't have a whole lot of exposition or traditional cinema story-telling, but there's a good story in there told through context and environments, they actually use the medium to tell the story rather than just using the same techniques seen in film. Like on the surface it's just a heavy metal demon killing first person shooter, but it's also a pretty blatant critique of capitalism, greed, and corporations.