What Games Are You Playing?

Oh I don't deny that for its time there's a great deal of technical achievement to be had or that James is an average joe, but he's not a moron (ok with that voice acting maybe he is...) but that's why I said the MEANS should be taken away not the ability.

I'm pretty sure being an average joe doesn't mean you awkwardly move to attack things, you may be unwieldy in combat, weaker and untrained, but there's no reason for the gameplay aspect to not be smooth. Excusing poor mechanics by saying "he's just an average joe" isn't really a fair comment.

The girls in PZ2 were just kids, but their mechanics for battling enemies was geared towards that conceit rather than just making a clumsy interface. I refuse to believe that the combat system in SH2 is awkward because it was designed to be. It can be designed to have little effect or maybe not harm enemies at all, but desinging it specifically to irritate is unlikely I think.

Like I've said, I'm not trying to rag on the game per se, it's more my foolish expectations, many people hold the game up to a standard today, because they played it when it was new, so the limitations don't seem so great, but having read all these glowing reviews and such I expected to have the same experience, but as you say I'm playing 10 years after the fact.

The combat and so on is stuff I can usually get over if a game wows me or has an alternate appeal factor, but this game sadly doesn't for me. On the bright side it's definitely convinced me to pick up PZ2.

@Riva yes it is quite amazing. I tried playing Shadows of the Empire on N64 a while back, could NOT play it due to lack of dual analogue sticks (or rather because fine aiming was really awkward due to not having a dedicated stick.)
 
I played through the Xbox version of SH2. A shame really, since walking down darkened corridors and such had the atmosphere completely ruined by the fact that the Xbox was so bloody loud it constantly sounded like it was trying to suck your face off.

Good game, though.
 
ROTK came in the post today.. forgot how friggin hard and cheap it was... More than 3 enemies attack you, you have pretty much no chance, every hit causes you to flinch and break your combo, and if you're surrounded you're pretty much boned. Still fun, but also frustrating.
 
Put over four hours into each of Torchlight and Singularity over the weekend, which is a) the most I've played games in a long time and b) way more than I really want to play games, I've realized. Although tonight I do plan to start :gulp: Amnesia...
 
Torchlight was a good game, I couldn't play it for anymore than about 3 hours at a time due to being quite repetitive though, looking forward to it's sequel as it has fully integrated Co-Op!
 
I've not seen enough of Dragon Crown (I do love the visuals to Vanillaware games though, Got Muramasa and Odin Sphere waiting for me to get round to playing them!), there's a PSP game in development by them that looks rather special too.
 
Having played SH2 a bit more I'm happy to report an improvement. I'm at the hospital now, things arep icking up a bit, the sudden appearance of captain triangle and Mr. Pointy was rather alarming. It was brilliantly done too because it went down like this: "hmm so I'm on the roof but there's nothing bloody here...ugh what am I supp- what's that scraping nois- OH ****" *smack*
 
In regards to the combat, I think its just an element of the genre at that time, go back and play any of the Resident Evils prior to Resi 4 and they all control horribly and in both Resi and SH the whole point is that you don't engage in combat unless you really have no choice. Funnily enough its what put me off Resi but the overall mood and tone of SH (well, the first two, I own the third but not played it) really hooked me into playing both through to completion.
 
RivaOni said:
In regards to the combat, I think its just an element of the genre at that time, go back and play any of the Resident Evils prior to Resi 4 and they all control horribly and in both Resi and SH the whole point is that you don't engage in combat unless you really have no choice. Funnily enough its what put me off Resi but the overall mood and tone of SH (well, the first two, I own the third but not played it) really hooked me into playing both through to completion.
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I know it's meant to encourage avoiding combat, but Resi accomplished that by limiting ammo and the amount of weapons you could carry (and in REmake by making zombies MORE trouble once 'dead'). Yes the aiming system wasn't great, but it locked on (at least when you first hit "ready weapon" and you cold aim up and down. Though I agree it does seem a conceit of the games of the era. Lack of a 180-turn still annoys me a lot though.

Edit: Ok it seems that firearms do lock-on, definitely warming up to SH now, especially since you can hammer the button for faster fire, unlike classic resis where the fire-rate tended to be fixed. Still probably won't buy it and the melee combat remains annoying, but it's improving the more I play it. James' voice still blows though.
 
Playing Captain America: Super Soldier now.

It's pretty fun, heavily heavily borrows from Arkham Asylum, but Cap has a few more combat tricks up his sleeve and is more acrobatic. That said Arkham is of course still better in every way, but Cap is a pretty fun time waster. I rather like the soundtrack too, nothing memorable but very fitting and actiony.

Shield throwing is fun too, bt my favourite movie is where you flip off someone's back and then spack them with your shield on the way down, especially since it's in a 300 style slowmo-fastmo shot.

I'm still not sure where I'd put it in the grand scheme of Sega superhero games. I actually liked all of them *dodges bottles* even though I can appreciate the production quality was often downright terrible.

I think as it stands from a personal viewpoint it's:
1. Thor: God of Thunder
2. Captain America: Super Soldier
3. Iron Man 2
4. Iron Man
5. The Incredible Hulk.

From a technical/ objective standpoint:
1. Captain America
2. The Incredible Hulk
3. Thor
4. Iron Man
5. Iron Man 2

I just really enjoyed Thor, it reminded me of the EA Lord of the Rings games and had a sense of heft to the combat with fun elemental powers and a neat grapple system, even if it wasn't all that deep. I also liked the environments and design (that's more down to the movie designers than graphical quality, where it was bloom central, but I still liked the look of the game, lush environments and vibrant colours.)

Cap as it stands is still great, but I think I need to play it more before I decide. I get the feeling it'll be over quickly and the combat is what's holding the game up. The same was true of Thor, but there was less stuff in between the combat.

It's got the same Arkham layout of: explore/travel > fight area > explore/travel > fight area, but the in between bits in Arkham were more interesting and wrapped around a better story, plus plenty of neat easter eggs like the cells of famous villains etc. Cap has some ok collectibles which help to build a backstory a bit more but it's not the same as going "hey there's Freeze's cell!, Oh look! Hugo Strange's office!".

Of course it could just be that I know less about Cap so he's inherently less interesting to me, but I'm not a big Thor fan either but that game world sucked me in more. It's still a lot of fun punching people in the face though so I'll probably pick the game up when it's closer to £20.

EDIT: kk changed my mind as expected. Cap is definitely the best sega CBM game. I still like Thor though. Chris Evans gives a really well-written speech near the end about how no man is special, which is great, because it's exactly how Cap should be, humble, not arrogant. Though others may put him on a pedestal, he's well aware that he's just part of the bigger picture. The score also got really epic towards the end in the final boss fight. The bosses also beat the heck out of Arkham's. Mostly because, to paraphrase a review I read, they feel like an extension of the skills you've already learned rather than a totally new kind of enemy with glowing weak spots. All the attacks you've learned so far will be needed in the boss battles, even against the stereotypical giant foe.
 
Sparrowsabre7 said:
Edit: Ok it seems that firearms do lock-on, definitely warming up to SH now, especially since you can hammer the button for faster fire, unlike classic resis where the fire-rate tended to be fixed. Still probably won't buy it and the melee combat remains annoying, but it's improving the more I play it. James' voice still blows though.
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I loved the voice acting in Silent Hill 2. I interpreted the performances as conveying the mental dislocation of each character.

Still playing Fallout New Vegas - underrated game. Vault 11 was a work of greatness (as far as video games go).
 
Genkina Hito said:
Sparrowsabre7 said:
Edit: Ok it seems that firearms do lock-on, definitely warming up to SH now, especially since you can hammer the button for faster fire, unlike classic resis where the fire-rate tended to be fixed. Still probably won't buy it and the melee combat remains annoying, but it's improving the more I play it. James' voice still blows though.
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I loved the voice acting in Silent Hill 2. I interpreted the performances as conveying the mental dislocation of each character.

Still playing Fallout New Vegas - underrated game. Vault 11 was a work of greatness (as far as video games go).
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I like everyone else's voice acting. I know what you mean, but I think dislocation =/= lobotomised, which is how James sounds.
 
Sparrowsabre7 said:
I like everyone else's voice acting. I know what you mean, but I think dislocation =/= lobotomised, which is how James sounds.
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It's all being redubbed for the Collection out soon, so James might be alright then...
 
Dead Rising 2.

Initially I liked that iwas able to progress further in it than I could in the first, but now I'm at the stage where I'm still too low level to even attempt taking on the bathroom guy, the bike guy, ex singer or the chef. I decided to concentrate on getting through the story, and I can't even do that because I'm terrible at aiming in this game.

When I'm not venting about how hard DR2 is I've been playing limbo which I am liking so far, reminds me of a few of the older games like Rick Dangerous, Another world, Flashback and Bermuda Syndrome, but with checkpoints to make things that little bit easier.
 
Been working on The Lost and Damned DLC on GTA IV, though I got it as a stand alone.

I'm enjoying being this part of a motorbike club which then has friends follow you on activities. My one grip with this game is that Rockstar added some DLC automobiles but makes them unavailable to the player unless they fail the mission or so forth.
 
Omaru_SD said:
Dead Rising 2.

Initially I liked that iwas able to progress further in it than I could in the first, but now I'm at the stage where I'm still too low level to even attempt taking on the bathroom guy, the bike guy, ex singer or the chef. I decided to concentrate on getting through the story, and I can't even do that because I'm terrible at aiming in this game.

When I'm not venting about how hard DR2 is I've been playing limbo which I am liking so far, reminds me of a few of the older games like Rick Dangerous, Another world, Flashback and Bermuda Syndrome, but with checkpoints to make things that little bit easier.
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LIMBO UNF! I love that game so.

And I'm waiting for DR2 Off the Record in oct =3 I love me some Frank West.
 
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