The Videogame Thread

[Terra]

2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.

[ObsequiousNewt]

Antichamber is haard

Tell me about it.
although its kind of antigame hard, like... its not hard in the sense that it demands a degree of system mastery that one simply hasn't garnered yet... its more like... i dunno, the puzzles feel to me like those questions/jokes people ask you when they try to be pithy, except they're actually just repeating stuff that supposedly makes ex-post sense except it can *only ever* make ex-post sense and thus demand from you what is basically trial and error gameplay, which isn't my favourite. like "what's one half of one? 0,5? no! the navel" [works better in spanish]. I hate those kinds of "riddles", memory riddles, basically, which make no sense other than being intentionally misleading and then laughing in your face for having mislead you.

I never got the impression that Antichamber was like that; it's more like "you'll never solve a puzzle the same way twice" sort of critical-thinking-test.

2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.

Long words can help to be more descriptive. "Use" could be ambiguous here.

[Rhetorica]

In my experience, honestly, Antichamber was about forcing you to think outside of the box on every problem. There are only ever a limited set of actions you can make in any given puzzle, and a fair number of them rely on paying close attention to environmental cues and taking time to experiment with what you've got. Once a puzzle reveals a new tactic, there are typically many puzzles that you can then go and solve.

The majority of the puzzles are really just logic problems, like the early puzzles where you have to block motion sensors to advance through a series of doors but only have a couple of cubes with which to do so.

The only one I thought was 100% crap was the porthole trick (it's required for the finale, but the main puzzle that introduces it is a side-puzzle on another one, so you can't even tell that you've missed it.)

[Torco]

Yeah, the porthole thing was annoying
in fairness, the one where looking through a window changes the entire room is pretty cool. taking time to experiment what you got, though, is kind of what I mean by trial and error gameplay.

[ObsequiousNewt]

Yeah, the porthole thing was annoying
in fairness, the one where looking through a window changes the entire room is pretty cool. taking time to experiment what you got, though, is kind of what I mean by trial and error gameplay.

did you find the secret purple room with the number 2?

[Arzena]

Playing:
Mass Effect Trilogy
Half Life: Black Mesa mod
Portal 2

Want to play:
Crusader Kings II and assorted DLCs
Deus Ex

[Terra]

Have you ever wondered what it's like to be a poorly-paid Soviet Arstotzkan border official? If so, then Papers, Please is for you!

I recently bought Scribblenauts Unlimited, but I regret it; I'm enjoying Papers Please a lot more. It's a tense and suspenseful game.

[Torco]

scriblenauts is pretty cool, in the sense that there's plenty to do and its fun to figure out novel ways to solve this or that puzzle.

Papers please, to me, was pretty boring. Like, it requires an attention to detail and minutia-oriented mindset I just don't have. I mean I get the design of the thing, and its pretty cool in theory... its just, they could have picked a better core mechanic than paperwork =/
<yeah, paperwork was central to the aesthetic... buuut... paperwork, man>

[Morrígan]

Wrong, Torco: the core gameplay mechanic is bureaucratic tedium

[Torco]

I think that's more like its core aesthetic, or at least its core motif... the core mechanic is more like of checking if a person's papers are in order and it certainly does support convey that motif: its just not an enjoyable experience to have for hours on end: I suppose that's the thing with videogames, isn't it? movies <especially mesometrages [is that a word] and short films> can afford to have boredom as a core aesthetic... not to mention paintings and sculptures! but a videogame is something you really need to sink time into in order to appreciate properly, and being soul-crushingly tedious, while a valid aesthetic choice, doesn't do a lot to achieve that goal. I suppose papers please is "hard" art in that sense, kind of like that novel Sal's signature is from, that is hard to read and ostensibly all the more rewarding for it. And I'm not dissing on it at all, but... yeah, I guess I'm too shallow in my relationship with games for it to really catch my attention.

Incidentally, I started playing Dragon Age: Origins and its pretty well realized. Has kind of a neverwinter nights vibe, except a hell of a lot better. The chorus music thing gets a bit old but, otherwise, the game is rock solid. Also morrigan is hot as fuck xD

[Risla]

I've been working through Mass Effect, in lieu of playing through Dragon Age 2 the squillionth time (I absolutely love that game to teeny tiny bits, for most of the reasons people hate it). I also seem to be back to playing Plants vs Zombies a lot.

[Morrígan]

I've been working through Mass Effect, in lieu of playing through Dragon Age 2 the squillionth time (I absolutely love that game to teeny tiny bits, for most of the reasons people hate it). I also seem to be back to playing Plants vs Zombies a lot.

I've yet to play Dragon Age, though I'll probably get around to it eventually. I absolutely love Mass Effect, and was somewhat less impressed by the later games. Mechanically, the first one had some faults, but I think the story was incredibly good in ways the other games never managed.

I really wish the first game could be re-done using the some of the mechanics of Mass Effect 3.

[Risla]

I've yet to play Dragon Age, though I'll probably get around to it eventually. I absolutely love Mass Effect, and was somewhat less impressed by the later games. Mechanically, the first one had some faults, but I think the story was incredibly good in ways the other games never managed.

I really wish the first game could be re-done using the some of the mechanics of Mass Effect 3.

Yeah, some of the mechanics of this game are a bit of a disaster---I keep canceling out of menus when I try to go back, which is mildly infuriating. The story is definitely good, though. I just finished Virmire---that was a bit of a punch to the emotions.

I'd really recommend both Dragon Age games. Lots of people hate Dragon Age 2, but I actually prefer it. Origins is a fairly typical fantasy RPG in terms of plot, and you know the general story right from the get-go: it's about how the darkspawn are defeated by a small, desperate band of people, and the world is saved. With 2, it's different; it's the story of how, through a lot of people's good intentions, the fragile peace in one city is shattered. It's on a much smaller scale, which I appreciate a great deal since it seems a lot more real and believable to me than Saving the World, and you really don't know what's going to happen when you start playing.

[zompist]

Incidentally, I started playing Dragon Age: Origins and its pretty well realized. Has kind of a neverwinter nights vibe, except a hell of a lot better.

Not surprising, as they were made by the same company.

I liked DA:O, except that the quests were sooooo looooooong. The multiple origin stories thing is pretty neat, too.

[Zaarin]

Incidentally, I started playing Dragon Age: Origins and its pretty well realized. Has kind of a neverwinter nights vibe, except a hell of a lot better.

Not surprising, as they were made by the same company.

I liked DA:O, except that the quests were sooooo looooooong. The multiple origin stories thing is pretty neat, too.

DA:O has a great cast of characters and a cool setting, but its gameplay is atrocious--my mage is level 47 and still dies at the first sign of combat, even with cannon fodder--and even traveling everywhere with Alistair and either Sten or Shale doesn't help much (and, of course, Leliana for the locks--which doesn't help the situation).

[zompist]

I played as a Mage, but... checking my notes... ah, it was on Easy, because I didn't like the combat system either. Bioware started with D&D games, and the DAO mechanics are still basically attuned to (micro)managing a party. I don't know who likes the combat system... it's usually the character interactions that people like Bioware for.

Edit: re-reading my blog, I note that I had a lot of reservations about DAO. It feels fun in memory, but at the time the combat system, the loooooong missions, and a series of bad design decisions barely made up for the fun of the characters.

[Torco]

What? I'm playing mage as well and, while not a tank by any stretch of the imagination, guy can take a decent pounding. I guess it has to do with the fact that I chose highly defensive spells: paralyze, cone of cold, winter's embrace, mageshield, lifedrain, sleep and so on and so on. I kind of like the combat system, for what it is: Its more fun that the one in NWN, at least! don't get me wrong, D&D 3rd is pretty decent as far as tabletop simulationist systems go, but its that, a tabletop system.

The combat in DAO is fast enough that you can play it without pausing if the battle's not too hard, and yet complex enough that you can press space every two seconds of gameplay for best results: There's a fair amount of skill in it, too, like... It has happened to me a few times that I lose a bossfight, then rethink it and come back now with an actual plan, and beat it without even a character getting injured. It feels hard but fair and.

[Salmoneus]

but seriously, how is it repetitive? each level in Thief 1 is such that there's like nine thousand ways to beat it.

Not really. At least, not that I can see - pretty much I'm just (or was just, I've wandered off now) keeping to shadows, trying to sneak past people without them hearing or seeing me, dousing lightsources, blackjacking people from behind, etc etc. This is a different mechanic from shooting people, and it's an exciting one at first... but it's just as repetitive.

[Torco]

Well, its a *set* of mechanics moreso than a single mechanic, for starters. This means that the combination of those [which torches you water arrow, which guys you blackjack or arrow in the back and which guys you just sneak past] and the interplay between that and the level alone makes for variety. Also, there's things to explore, places with loot, and more than one way to get places. For example, I don't remember which level this was, but you had to get past a hall with some guards in order to get to a lever that opened the gate: you could dispatch the entire bunch of guards, and that was hard as fuck and required a lot of tedious work and so on... *or* you could find a way to the beams of the roof above the hall, make your way through the shadowy roof, get to the place where the lever was, throw a noisemaker to just that right place, jump down to the ground, activate the lever and go through. BOOM, half a level avoided out of cunning.

I remember those moments being not entirely rare in thief one... then again, I may be romanticizing my own memories thereof. Still, keep an open mind and look for alternate ways or solutions, I bet the game will surprise you a time or two.