Zero Punctuation - Yahtzee reviews

[Meshugger]

The guy really, really, really hates Halo, doesn't he?

[Moatilliatta]

Well it is quite mediocre. And every cool person is obligated to hate mediocre stuff that is loved by the mindless masses, didn't you know that?

Edited March 19, 2008 by Moatilliatta

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

The guy really, really, really hates Halo, doesn't he?

 

He isn't alone, and pretty much everything he's said this week is true, well when you strip out all the obvious entertainment elements.

[Pop]

Check it out. Gamespot had an interview with Yahtzee and he talked about some of his influences. This one's pretty funny.

The Spoony Experiment reviews The Thing

[Moatilliatta]

At first I tought he was alright, but then he started to grow on me and now I've bookmarked his site. Downward spiral?

[GreasyDogMeat]

Yahtzee completly nails the point about health meters. Glad I'm not the only one who hates the recent trend of 'hiding in a corner sucking your thumb' while the health meter fills back up.

 

Damn you CoD 4.

 

Just watched the Burnout Paradise review. Had me in tears... freaking awesome!

Edited March 23, 2008 by GreasyDogMeat

[Moatilliatta]

Zack & Wiki

[Musopticon?]

Yahtzee completly nails the point about health meters. Glad I'm not the only one who hates the recent trend of 'hiding in a corner sucking your thumb' while the health meter fills back up.

I for one am glad to welcome our new regeneration overlords. Simply because I hate how the only way to heal in most fps' is to go look for healthpacks or healing potions or whatever everytime, everytime.

 

And when they allow you to carry several, an inventory perhaps or just a limited carry capacity, it means that every player will go out of their way to stock themselves up on healthpacks before every combat encounter. And when they lose a couple, they reload. The game becomes an exercise in hoarding.

 

Actually, the best way healing has so far been done is not to the immediate "lol, i'sa bullet spongz!"-Gears of War-healing once you hide your head for a couple of seconds, but the Chronicles of Riddick method, where you have a health bar which regenerates only a certain percentage and, even then, only if you haven't gone over that limit. After a certain point, the health meter doesn't reach maximun unless you find medical stations, which do not(IIRC) refill after use. It simplifies a system of injury into the bare minimun, which has you taking your breath and taking cover to not lose your overall health maximum, but it also never breaks the flow of combat, because losing health doesn't mean you are going to run for the last healthkit you saw and neither does it mean that you are now expected to hide in a steel barrel and wait for your magical regenerative blood to kick in.

 

I also adore how Tribes:Vengeance does it, because you can choose your healing; both regeneration and health packs, both immobile health stations(destructible) and mobile ones(attached to a vehicle for instance). I think it's brilliant.

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

Republic Commando had it all right. You have your shield meter, which works like any other shield in video games (Hide and it will regenerate) and ahealth bar. It makes a lot of sense, sinse health doesn't regenerate that fast, but shields can.

[Krookie]

That's what the original Halo was like. Once your shield went down, you started using up your health.

 

Not sure why they got rid of that

[Musopticon?]

So that everyone would be able to use the noob combo. Now it hardly matters if you hit the enemy's head once his shield is down. Everyone can win!

 

****ing dual-wield. It's just unwinnable.

[Kaftan Barlast]

Yahtzee completly nails the point about health meters. Glad I'm not the only one who hates the recent trend of 'hiding in a corner sucking your thumb' while the health meter fills back up.

 

Damn you CoD 4.

 

 

Damn straight. And while we're on the topic of resisting progress; I hate dishwashers. They just take away the fun about painstakingly and manually removing grease and dried-in food, and instead giving us a smooth and highly efficient way of doing said process, thus leaving us more time to do boring stuff like playing games or having tons of sex.

 

I mean, why would we want a system that lets us concentrate on gaming, when we could be faffing about looking for medkits or juggling health potions in the midst of heated combat?

[Krookie]

The new health system doesn't really make the game any easier, either. CoD4 still beats the crap out of me on Veteran.

[Pop]

Yahtzee completly nails the point about health meters. Glad I'm not the only one who hates the recent trend of 'hiding in a corner sucking your thumb' while the health meter fills back up.

 

Damn you CoD 4.

 

 

Damn straight. And while we're on the topic of resisting progress; I hate dishwashers. They just take away the fun about painstakingly and manually removing grease and dried-in food, and instead giving us a smooth and highly efficient way of doing said process, thus leaving us more time to do boring stuff like playing games or having tons of sex.

 

I mean, why would we want a system that lets us concentrate on gaming, when we could be faffing about looking for medkits or juggling health potions in the midst of heated combat?

You're right. Health Regen is completely perfect. What arrogance to think that it doesn't adequately address any and every situation and gameplay issue that could arise. What folly to suggest that magical self-closing wounds aren't an acceptable gameplay element of all possible gameworlds.

 

Catch up with the times, people.

[Tigranes]

resisting progress

 

Yeah, cause every time we change something, it automatically means we are improving in every way over whatever there was before; every step we take is forward! YUS PROGRESS GOGOGO.

 

*ahem*

 

They both have their advantages. Fundamentally, though, I too prefer the simple hit point system, because there's nothing like being reduced to two or three HP, and trying to navigate the rest of the level on tip-toes or searching desperately for a healthpack. I find there's much more tension in there than hiding in a corner waiting for it to fill back up, though that does have its moments.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

Army of Two

 

But since my friend had trouble understanding that enemy bullets were something to be avoided, he was taken down.

Edited April 2, 2008 by Deadly_Nightshade

[Deadly_Nightshade]

No More Heroes

[Deadly_Nightshade]

Condemned 2: Bloodshot

[Calax]

MMMMM Indigo Prophesy Syndrome....

[Enoch]

You know, listening to Yahtzee go on and on using "pant-wetting atmosphere" as praise for a game has made me realize that I really don't enjoy the same things he does in games. Much in the same way that I don't like to watch horror films, I don't enjoy it when a game makes me feel like there's some horribly diseased monster creeping up behind me. Sure, achieving some emotional response is better than none, but the inspiration of feelings of revulsion, horror, and fright strikes me as a rather cheap way to do so (this is akin to "tearjerker" films inspiring sympathy by showing a cute little puppy getting stepped on). If a game (or film) is going to make me feel that terrified/horrified/weepy, it has to earn it by being excellent in other respects (see, e.g., The Shining). Otherwise, I'm just going to deliberately prevent myself from empathizing with the characters, which makes it more likely that I'm treating the game/film as farce than as what the developers intend.

 

On the other hand, he's absolutely right about game developers making the dumb mistake of explaining all the mysteries in their games. I hate it when a game has some good mysteries that keep me interested, but answers them all at the end of the 2nd Act, leaving the player with no further motivation than "now that you know who it is, go kill the big bad guy." (MotB did this, and I still haven't bothered to play on past the conversation with Safiya's mother.)

Edited April 17, 2008 by Enoch

[Nick_i_am]

I'm with you there, I had friends who loved the original Resident Evil games, but all I saw were crappy controls and a bad camera that 'forced' horror when combined with cheesy IT'S BEHIND YOU! moments.

 

I only ever played the demo for FEAR, but that seemed to be going in the right direction in terms of scaring the crap out of you, by giving you perfect controls then springing something totally harmless but unexposed on you as soon as you lost a degree of that control (for example, on a ladder).

 

Likewise there's nothing overtly frightening about the original Half-life, but early on in the game the oppressive atmosphere combined with not knowing what you're dealing with encouraged a more cautious approach to what was otherwise a run-and-gun game.

[Enoch]

Well, I think that guys like Yahtzee would agree that games that try to scare you in lame or cheesy ways aren't well designed.

 

My point was more that I don't enjoy games whose goal is to scare the player. Caution-inducing mystary? Fun. Getting a bit frightened during your first encounter with something that you don't yet know how to handle? Also fun. Making the player constantly feel as if the game is just waiting for its opportunity to ambush them? Not fun (to me).

 

 

Part of this is also just me not enjoying shooters very much, whether horror-based or not.

[Nick_i_am]

Yeah, horror games arn't my cup of tea either, just as I don't like films that do the same. On the other hand, I DO enjoy films like Beowulf which was, by all accounts, pretty horrific, but not a horror film per-say. The same goes for games such as half-life.

[Pidesco]

The marine part of AvP, and most of SS2 were pretty much built around making you scared witless thorugh your enemies, the gampelay, and the environment. They were, to me, just beyond awesome in the way they got you to feel scared. I wouldn't call it horror, though, it's more like extreme suspense.

 

The RE style fear through crap controls, on the other hand seems just lazy design to me. As for F.E.A.R., while I enjoyed its fights immensely, I thought that the scary bits only made the game feel broken and disjointed, and never managed to scare me at all. Except for the bit with the ladder. That was a nice trick.

 

 

This review made me want to give Condemned a go.

[Pop]

I never got all that absorbed in Condemned scarey bits, except for the part in the department store. There are mannequins strewn all about the level. Some of them are mannequins. Some of them are people. They'll stand perfectly still until you turned your back. This combined with the (excessively, in my opinion) claustrophobic level design and the pitch black darkness really set up an atmosphere.

 

The problem with FEAR (besides the fact that I never found Ju-on evil little girls to be scary) was that it was easy to distance yourself from the horror elements because they weren't a part of gameplay. They were basically cutscenes seamlessly inserted into the gameplay as visions or whatever. The Ocean House in Bloodlines did a little better, as there were parts of it that could kill you, but still, after that first time it's not very scary. But that first time in the basement it's ****ing intense.

 

Contrast those with something like the labs in STALKER. The poltergeists and psionic monsters created the same sort of atmosphere that you could get from harmless ambient noise and scary visuals, but they also had the ability to kill you. And the jumpers and pseudogiants made the best sorts of noises.

Edited April 17, 2008 by Pop