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[Neonivek]

Blarge I hate everything YARG!

Goodness do I not even take that as a joke anymore mostly because I hear that seriously enough that it has lost even the slightest hint of humor it once had. It aggravates me every single time I hear it now and ruins my mood.

Especially since that POV comes entirely because I am entirely 100% willing to criticize even things I love and look at how things could be improved... OR it is from me talking about something I don't like (because I don't usually talk about things I mildly like)... OR it is because I feel like a lot of good things are kind of self-explanatory, why is it good? because it did it well.

As well that I will look at pieces critically... Because you know... "Just don't think about it" should be the motto everyone should follow *eye roll*

Which is why I am always surprised when actual people have already discussed what I think about from time to time.

Titus Andronicus being a terrible play? I thought that immediately when I read/saw it... Boy but it must be good it is Shakespeare right? Wait! My view is actually OLD! to the point where some scholars believe he didn't even write the thing.

---

Maybe it is about time I just do a huge review of my favorite game of all time... Suikeoden 2... Actually no that is too long.

I need to do a review of something... uuuugh!

I could always do that... power ranger parody thing that I was supposed to do a letsplay on... but that was entirely negative... and I am not good at letsplays >_< and they are a lot of work... and that game is sooooooooooooooooooooo bad!

---

On a side note:

I've found a weird pattern between Webcam Streamers/letsplayers/whateverers's popularity... and how handsome they are.

In fact that COMPLETELY explains the Drama I am watching.

It is pretty bad... boardering on aweful with several leads with absolutely no chemistry... But why is it so popular? That makes no sense? Hmm let me read the comments...

OHHHH the characters are so handsome and sexy and people are completely ignoring everything and focusing on how dreamy they all are...

I am... stuck between hating those people and going "well I guess if that is all you want out of it"

But then I remember I am already watching a GOOD show... that isn't as popular... because it has less focus on how sexy everyone is... and I get mad.

---

Did I mention I hate everything?

[Harry Baldman]

On a side note:

I've found a weird pattern between Webcam Streamers/letsplayers/whateverers's popularity... and how handsome they are.

You'd be surprised how helpful being good-looking is in getting ahead in life. It's not really a weird pattern, it's part of entertainment - distinctive looks and a distinctive voice help a lot in setting yourself apart and making yourself bearable to look at and listen to.

[Neonivek]

Ok better start using this again...

---

You know... Extra Credits, a youtube series on game analysis and game issues (sometimes branching into other areas), it a rather interesting series but whenever there is a major fault in their logic it always come to the exact same thing:

They are very absolute in what they say. (The second is that they are populist. They fully side with a game being fun with as many people as possible, as opposed to being the perfect game for their target audience... But that is just a disagreement between me and them rather then a fault.)

So if the topic is horror what are they going to say? Right that shock isn't horror and that only psychological horror is the REAL horror! Which is a problem a LOT of critics have been getting wrong which I shall just give my argument against it as: "Just because people do it wrong, doesn't mean it is wrong in it of itself".

Well what about game depth? Ohh right that Depth is what you really want and complexity is what you want to absolutely avoid and there are no intersections between them. Forgetting that a lot of depth creates complexity automatically (Go is more complex then Chess, in spite Chess having more rules...)

Not that they always have this issue, but I never seen another issue pop up as they are usually quite thoughtful.

---

Actually I find the proclamation that Jump Scares "aren't scary" to be annoying in it of itself.

It is basically just a counter movement against the excessive use of Jump Scares, especially since jump scares are the cheapest and easiest to use and basically take absolutely no talent to pull off.

So that must mean psychological horror never resorts to Jump Scares right? Well, no... They use it quite often as well. Having the monster move achingly slow, crawling closer, almost unseen, and then BOOM! end scene.

[Loud Whispers]

So if the topic is horror what are they going to say? Right that shock isn't horror and that only psychological horror is the REAL horror! Which is a problem a LOT of critics have been getting wrong which I shall just give my argument against it as: "Just because people do it wrong, doesn't mean it is wrong in it of itself".

Shock isn't horror. They're doing it wrong, this means they're doing it wrong. You can cause panic and terror, perhaps even with shock one can evoke horror subliminally, but in of itself it is not horror and you can't substitute horror for shock and still call it horror.

Well what about game depth? Ohh right that Depth is what you really want and complexity is what you want to absolutely avoid and there are no intersections between them. Forgetting that a lot of depth creates complexity automatically (Go is more complex then Chess, in spite Chess having more rules...)

To be fair the number of people who are happy to deal with complexity to gain the most depth is numbered by the size of the DF forum xD

It is basically just a counter movement against the excessive use of Jump Scares, especially since jump scares are the cheapest and easiest to use and basically take absolutely no talent to pull off.

Not true at all :|
Shit jump scares take no talent to pull off, it takes skill to jump someone with something that's actually unexpected. You need to be able to accurately guess the expectations of your audience and subvert them

[Neonivek]

The thing about the "general audience" is they have low low standards with Jump Scares. unfortunately

Shock isn't horror. They're doing it wrong, this means they're doing it wrong. You can cause panic and terror, perhaps even with shock one can evoke horror subliminally, but in of itself it is not horror and you can't substitute horror for shock and still call it horror.

My point was...

Just because everyone overcooks broccoli. It doesn't mean Broccoli is a bad vegetable.

Just because everyone misuses Shock to create cheap scares and jumps... It doesn't mean shock is bad.

As for "Shock isn't horror" well.. "Psychology isn't horror" ... Horror is a product not an element.

My argument is that Shock IS a component of horror. The typical "Hipster" argument is that Shock is completely unrelated to horror.

---

You can cause panic and terror

Actually that brings up something interesting for me.

In Kings Quest 7 there is a creature called the Boogieman... and if you look at him in a still or a letsplay he... isn't really all that scary.

Yet why is he so scary to people who play the game? I mean, he doesn't look scary...

Ohh right because when he appears a very panic inducing music starts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-OBMOvQd_Q

And you only have a few seconds to get away before you die! He is the only enemy in the game who can appear ANYWHERE!

It goes to show that how you set a creature up can be MANY times more important then how scary they look objectively (If anything, I think you can go overboard with how "scary" something looks.)

[Neonivek]

I am starting to think the worst set up of all videogames is Real Time Pause.

The only game I felt that did it well was Freedom Force 2...

It wants to be faster then Turn Based and more strategic then real time...

Yet ends up being kind of all the worse for it... Not enough action and not enough strategy.

Heck it quite often just ends up being a poor Turn based anyway "Ok, you swing and you swing and you swing... Ok now your action is off cooldown, pause and then attack... Actually we will do that for you".
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Actually I am starting to think Real Time Pause is the Shakey Cam of videogames.

You know how movies use Shakey Cam because their choreography and action sucks and hide by making it impossible to see? Like two guys could be standing perfectly still and punching eachother's kidneys and the shakey cam makes it look like an epic battle is taking place.

Real Time Pause might be just that. Can't make a good action game? Can't make a good Strategy game? Well Real Time pause that sucker! Even though it is mediocre it LOOKS like it is more meaningful then it actually is.

Mostly because people will see that it has more strategy then pure action. While it also has more action then pure strategy. Yet they will never see that it doesn't do any of them particularly well NOR does both of them combined become greater than the sum of its parts.

---

The reason why I listed Freedom Force 2 as a particularly good example (the first game had... issues).

Is because being ontop of the action is a large part of the game. It managed to actually be somewhat fast paced (In fact its worst fights are often ones that just dragged on) and required a lot of strategy.

Or rather it managed it not by going "Well we will have a bit of action and a bit of strategy" but rather it went "Lets have a lot of action and a lot of strategy" and attempted to be both.

Not that Freedom Force 2 was... particularly perfect. It certainly had problems but none of those issues was its real time pause.

[Dorsidwarf]

FTL was Real Time Pause and it's widely considered a masterpiece

[Neonivek]

FTL was Real Time Pause and it's widely considered a masterpiece

Which also kind of falls into the same spot isn't it?

It didn't have real time pause to be "kind of ok at both"

Whereas... Pillars of Eternity was.

[Egan_BW]

To present an opposing viewpoint: No.
I'm not great at time management, so any real time strategy game without pause I just can't play. And maybe I'd like to play a real time strategy game sometimes?

[Neonivek]

If there is one thing I hate hearing over and over again it is the phrase: "Show. don't tell"

Which as a "rule of thumb" is perfectly acceptable and an important thing to remember. It is only when people think of it religiously that it becomes a problem.

Since what they often forget is that "telling" can also be "Showing" so to speak. A good point for this is the Psychiatrist in Halloween who describes Mike Myers in detail as you can see how fearful, tired, and beaten down he is showing just how serious the situation is.

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I swear I am developing a stronger learning disability

Almost every single time I reread what I wrote on this forum I notice silly word substitutions that strain what I am saying and make it hard to read... (no this isn't USUALLY a source of misunderstanding here most people seem to piece together my odd... word changes)

Today I switched WELL and FUNNY... >_<

[Neonivek]

I've never seen a game's premise become rather disappointing after the gameplay kicks in

Spellcross is a game where you basically play a modern army and plays similar to Xcom. Except instead of aliens you fight against magical creatures like Orks, Elves, Wizards, and Dragons.

So that sounds awesome and there are so many magical creatures one might call upon (and some are neat... the idea of Ghosts being anti-tank because they can ghost inside and kill the crew).

Yet the game seems to kind of pull da suck a bit too often. So here are the enemy's sort of artillery units.

1) A Scorpian Rack that can fire 100 poisoned tipped arrows at once: Primative but yeah, I can see it being dangerous even against the modern soldier
2) A Balistae that fires a magically charged shot that can peirce tanks or even knock them over: Well, ok I guess... But can't we get something cooler?
3) A Golem a moving fortress that fires magical bolts that causes tanks to go haywire: OK there we go! Awesome!
4) A tower on wheels that fires cannon shots: Wait why? The Golems are better then this AND this looks terrible. Also this seems like a huge leap in technology...
5) Bazooka Orks: Wait why are they using our weapons now? Also, in all the library of creatures you decide Orks with Bazookas?
6) A Tank, which is four pieces of sheet metal on wheels with two giant medieval cannons on it: Ohh come on!
7) A Sonic tank which is a bagpipe hooked up to a megaphone:  Stop STOP!!! can you at LEAST have it be an amplified Banshee platform or something?

When did magical creatures get so boring?

[Neonivek]

Alright at my third so this is my last until someone responds

One thing that always perplexes me with games with choices is that the "Moral Choice" is rarely-never considered a sacrifice in it of itself. Your character refuses to dirty their hands for the greater good and because of it they... End up all the better for it.

Don't get me wrong I understand it somewhat. It is that your character refuses to allow things to reach their natural end, that "For the greater good" is exactly the mentality that causes these things to happen over and over again... That the villain as evil as he seems is simply doing what he does "For the greater good" but each time you have to justify that to yourself you get further and further away from that being the honest truth. How far will you go to keep up the lies until all you are doing is perpetuating evil because of the little good you caused?

So it isn't like having characters decide they won't perpetuate an evil for the greater good (killing their daughter for the untold power to topple a tyrannical empire) is a bad thing and HEY usually that is exactly what the player is trying to do, trying to forge some sort of golden ending where everything turns out right.

Though there are very few games that actually make you come face to face with exactly what you did beyond possibly a slightly harder last boss (ohh the humanity).

Yet there are three games I think of when I think about this:

1) Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together

The ENTIRE premise of the game if I had to do it in one sentence is: "What lengths will you go to keep blood off your hands?"

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So in the game your character is fighting an evil empire and you are somewhat ragtag. Yet an opportunity arises to get the people on your side and reverse the tide of the war! How do you do this? By slaughtering an entire town and blaming it on the enemy.

What is interesting is how completely different the story path is if you decide to do it, versus if you decide not to.

In the path where you actually do massacre the town... Things actually turn out great. Allies survive and even your best friend who left you returns and later forgives you for your massacre. You even depose both sides of the war (because obviously it turns out both sides are kind of... evil) and most of the strongest most powerful allies join you in this run.

In the path where you decide not to... You get blamed for the massacre and things take a turn for the worst. Plenty of people die and you end up needing to kill your friend in order to save yourself as he has been driven mad working for your ex-liege (who is evil). The people who join you are victims, bandits, and transients.

Things all turn out relatively fine in the end.

Yet in one you stained your hands and committed an atrocity and were rewarded for it. Yet in another you avoided the difficult choice and paid the price.

[Tack]

There was some random cop game on sale at Steam recently which had a "you can never be clean" angle to it.
Trying to play straight usually never worked out for you and generally people backed you into a corner and forced you to break your oaths one way or another.

[Neonivek]

There was some random cop game on sale at Steam recently which had a "you can never be clean" angle to it.
Trying to play straight usually never worked out for you and generally people backed you into a corner and forced you to break your oaths one way or another.

The problem with that game is that ultimately nothing you do matters.

You actually CAN stay clean... You can also be the most corrupt person on the earth... and it won't matter.

[Tack]

I know The Banner Saga had a moment where a good deed comes back to haunt you for no reason other than that you were kind and they were ambitious.
People complained like All Hell about it though.

Fable III had a thing where you could be an awful tyrant in the name of the greater good, but they opened the floor to the world's easiest exploit in the process so it never mattered.

So yeah. I guess I've never seen a game where the awfully moral and incredibly practical decision turns out to be just that.
Except where plague is involved. But especially not where zombies are involved.