What are you playing?

[Zounder]

By that argument, no Final Fantasy except for XI is an rpg, because XI is the only one where you create your character.

[neshcom]

[quote name='Zounder' post='79786' date='May 13 2010, 06:03 PM']By that argument, no Final Fantasy except for XI is an rpg, because XI is the only one where you create your character.[/quote]

To piggyback, there are tons of traditionally classified RPGs that don't let you create a character or make plot choices. Very few games do. So how do you define living through a character? Plenty of RPGs put you in a character, but you very often switch characters. I know that's a major plot device in FF13 (at least in the beginning).



His definition of an RPG is very convenient seeing as Bioware does make a lot of open-middle games, but even in the end, you get an ending that they decide (even in multiple endings). It's more of a passive-aggressive dig at SE, but his definition is very attention mongering. It's just so convenient that the things he mentioned are elements typical of Bioware games. And why does he consider adventure games as a separate genre from RPGS or any other genres? I've always seen it compounded with outher genres except RPGs and I'd say that they're naturally joined.



Does he mean to say that something more like Simulation games are more like RPGs? I mean, you DO live the life of a mayor in Sim City. Your choices truly affect your outcome.



The reason our genre system is the way it is now is more for classification of gameplay and what elements are emphasized. Action games are about on-screen gestures, RPGs are about menues and customization, simulation games are all menus, etc. Erickson's comment is like trying to organize a library of books by movie genres. The genres we use are distinctively set up for ease, not for literal definitions. Many films have aspects of drama, comedy, adventure, action, and suspense; we use those genres and base what we tag movies as based on stereotypes of movies.



If I were to define RPGs, I'd say that table-top gaming would be something to compare to, but it's tough genre-wide; you're still playing someone's game with an ending they've decided. There's usually always a definitive plot end that your choices very barely affect. But that's the nature of gaming, you go through an experience. Take Fallout (any of them) for example. You DO create a character and (in the first two) the ending was very open, even if it was based off of what you did and where, but there are still plot ends.



So how do you define living through a video game character? Can you? Is the idea even possible? It's not an easy discussion, but it should not be made by someone working on the inside trying to stir up free headlines.

[Sabaku Ika]

[quote name='Ap2000' post='79785' date='May 13 2010, 05:46 PM']Just a little information, because I agree with him:

http://www.strategyinformer.com/news/8006/...-13-isnt-an-rpg[/quote]

I clearly remember the lead designer of FFXIII saying this in an interview before it was released. So who is this person arguing with?

[neshcom]

Jim Sterling, part-time Professional Internet Troll and writer for Destructoid wrote an interesting blurb about the comment:

Pssh, semantics.



The whole "what makes an RPG" argument has been swimming around online for years, and it usually breaks down into those who believe RPGs are primarily about leveling up and stories, and those who believe it's about choice and open worlds. For my own part, I believe the term "RPG" doesn't need to be taken too literally. It's like the term "AI" when talking about NPCs -- the "real" words and terms have very definite meanings, but they mean something else when applied to a gaming context. Final Fantasy XIII is an RPG because that's the type of game the label has come to mean. Sure, the role plays you as opposed to you playing a role, but that's what RPG means to a lot of gamers now. Final Fantasy XIII is an RPG.

[Zounder]

Yeah, it really just comes down to what your personal definition of an RPG is, and then it isn't just an argument over what FFXIII is, but really any RPG of that type.

[Melon]

I thought RPGs already had a classification - JRPGs and WRPGs. <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... nfused.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':D' />



To take a break from SMT:SJ I bounced back to a game I started but never finished, Crimson Gem Saga for the PSP. It's a good little game, straight traditional RPG through and through, but the spritework is great and the backgrounds are awesome as well. I miss 2D games. I got distracted skill whoring before I stopped but my characters have badass spells they can only cast once, wiping out their entire MP gauge. <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... iggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':smug:' />



I also play Fat Princess once a week for a game or two, depending on if my team isn't full of complete retards (i.e. I'm stuck on supporting the dumbasses instead of playing for realz) I'm debating grabbing the PSP version. More of the same thing would be fun, but would it get stale? I bought the PS3 version about a month ago too, I feel like I need to get more money out of it.



I like my PSP, I wish it had more games. Or at least some more PS1 classics for me to play on the go. SONY USA, stop being little bitches and give me my effing Vagrant Story >:|

[Geof]

Iron Man 2 for Playstation 3, special Walmart exclusive tungsten grey and cobalt blue design Mk.V suitcas armor skin. Yes I gave money to Walmart, but it HAD AN EXTRA SUIT and was actually $5 less than everywhere else, go figure.



I can safely say, beyond any shodow of doubt, that this is indeed the greatest Playstation 3 game, or indeed videogame in general, that I have ever not yet played but opened the shrinkwrap & was yet again amazed by that little piece that always stays attached to the lower right side of the case. Today.



Who knows what tomorrow will bring?!?

[al kusanagi]

[quote name='Geof' post='79903' date='May 17 2010, 10:11 PM']Iron Man 2 for Playstation 3, special Walmart exclusive tungsten grey and cobalt blue design Mk.V suitcas armor skin. Yes I gave money to Walmart, but it HAD AN EXTRA SUIT and was actually $5 less than everywhere else, go figure.



I can safely say, beyond any shodow of doubt, that this is indeed the greatest Playstation 3 game, or indeed videogame in general, that I have ever not yet played but opened the shrinkwrap & was yet again amazed by that little piece that always stays attached to the lower right side of the case. Today.



Who knows what tomorrow will bring?!?[/quote]



I know it's Iron Man, but the universally terrible reviews should have been a clue to not buy it.

[Ap2000]

[quote name='Geof' post='79903' date='May 18 2010, 04:11 AM']Iron Man 2 for Playstation 3, special Walmart exclusive tungsten grey and cobalt blue design Mk.V suitcas armor skin. Yes I gave money to Walmart, but it HAD AN EXTRA SUIT and was actually $5 less than everywhere else, go figure.



I can safely say, beyond any shodow of doubt, that this is indeed the greatest Playstation 3 game, or indeed videogame in general, that I have ever not yet played but opened the shrinkwrap & was yet again amazed by that little piece that always stays attached to the lower right side of the case. Today.



Who knows what tomorrow will bring?!?[/quote]



Of course that game is absolute utter bullshit.

If you bought it, you're stupid. Sorry.

[neshcom]

I've not met a movie-game that I think can be called a good game. On the flip, Silent Hill was a great game-movie.

[Special Needs Tricycle]

[quote name='neshcom' post='79910' date='May 18 2010, 10:18 AM']I've not met a movie-game that I think can be called a good game. On the flip, Silent Hill was a great game-movie.[/quote]

This might be my nostalgia goggles fooling me, but IIRC, the Spider-Man movie game was pretty good. As was Enter the Matrix.



Also, Silent Hill was NOT a good movie. <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... #>/sad.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':D' /> It did capture the atmosphere of the game nicely, though.

[al kusanagi]

The Spider-Man movie games were not terrible. The last Wolverine game was FAR better than the movie it was based on. The Riddick games almost destroyed the collective minds of the gamer community because they're all around excellent games, tie in or not.



However those are the only positive examples I can think of out of hundreds or crappy ones.

[neshcom]

[quote name='Special Needs Tricycle' post='79913' date='May 18 2010, 01:22 PM']Also, Silent Hill was NOT a good movie. <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... #>/sad.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':(' /> It did capture the atmosphere of the game nicely, though.[/quote]

I'm not calling it The Godfather, but it was decent.

[Ap2000]

[quote name='Special Needs Tricycle' post='79913' date='May 18 2010, 07:22 PM'][quote name='neshcom' post='79910' date='May 18 2010, 10:18 AM']I've not met a movie-game that I think can be called a good game. On the flip, Silent Hill was a great game-movie.[/quote]

This might be my nostalgia goggles fooling me, but IIRC, the Spider-Man movie game was pretty good. As was Enter the Matrix.



Also, Silent Hill was NOT a good movie. <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... #>/sad.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':(' /> It did capture the atmosphere of the game nicely, though.

[/quote]



Enter the Matrix was one of the worst. It was horribly bug ridden and for the most part unplayable, not only because of the enormous amount of bugs, but because of the shitty controls, broken camera and repetitive gameplay. Re-install it and you'll see what I mean.



The Silent Hill movie wasn't bad, eventhough I usually dislike horror movies.



The first Riddick game (I haven't played the second one) was definitely a good game, despite the graphics looking like Doom 3. (plastic)



The LotR game probably doesn't count in this case, but it's good.



I haven't played it, but the King Kong game got good reviews.





The best is clearly Goldeneye though.

[Special Needs Tricycle]

I played the Gamecube version of Enter The Matrix. I don't remember any bugs.



And yeah, I forgot about Goldeneye.

[al kusanagi]

While it's not based on anything but the franchise as a whole, Transformers: The War for Cybertron is looking to be freaking awesome. I've got my hopes way up for this one.



If it can even come anywhere close to my favorite licensed game of all time, Sega's AM2 Team Macross for PS2, I'll be very happy.

[al kusanagi]

Just finished playing through the first 3 "episodes" of Alan Wake, and it's frikkin' awesome! I love when games manage to capture moods perfectly. So far it's doing a great job in bringing back both the survival and horror aspects of the genre.

[Vikitty]

I thought the Harry Potter games (the ones for the handhelds, not console) were good and fun. Lots of collectibles and quests. Nice way to kill some time and they were pretty true to the storyline.

[Ap2000]

I can't stop playing el Presidente 3.



I've been playing it ~15h since tuesday.

[neshcom]

Not so much "what I'm playing," but more of "should I play" post here today. Should I buy Civ IV on Steam or pirate it and wait for Civ V?

[Ap2000]

[quote name='neshcom' post='80055' date='May 21 2010, 07:06 PM']Not so much "what I'm playing," but more of "should I play" post here today. Should I buy Civ IV on Steam or pirate it and wait for Civ V?[/quote]



What kind of question is that ? =/

I have played 500h+ cIV (mostly BTS), so I'd say buy it of course...



However, the Steam version is quite steep (complete costs 40€ here, which also has the not-so-good Colonization remake) and there's really not reason to buy it on Steam.

Instead, just buy the cIV Complete Edition from amazon.com for 1/4th of the price.



ciV seems to become a very different game anyway, so you'll be able to play both of them at the same time, depending on what type of civ experience you want.

[neshcom]

[quote name='Ap2000' post='80056' date='May 21 2010, 01:32 PM'][quote name='neshcom' post='80055' date='May 21 2010, 07:06 PM']Not so much "what I'm playing," but more of "should I play" post here today. Should I buy Civ IV on Steam or pirate it and wait for Civ V?[/quote]



What kind of question is that ? =/

I have played 500h+ cIV (mostly BTS), so I'd say buy it of course...



However, the Steam version is quite steep (complete costs 40€ here, which also has the not-so-good Colonization remake) and there's really not reason to buy it on Steam.

Instead, just buy the cIV Complete Edition from amazon.com for 1/4th of the price.



ciV seems to become a very different game anyway, so you'll be able to play both of them at the same time, depending on what type of civ experience you want.

[/quote]

Steam has the base game for $20 or the complete bundle for $30. Then again, I've never played a real Civ game ever, so I don't really know what to expect. I'll take a look on Amazon for what deals they've got.

[Ap2000]

[quote name='neshcom' post='80057' date='May 21 2010, 07:58 PM'][quote name='Ap2000' post='80056' date='May 21 2010, 01:32 PM'][quote name='neshcom' post='80055' date='May 21 2010, 07:06 PM']Not so much "what I'm playing," but more of "should I play" post here today. Should I buy Civ IV on Steam or pirate it and wait for Civ V?[/quote]



What kind of question is that ? =/

I have played 500h+ cIV (mostly BTS), so I'd say buy it of course...



However, the Steam version is quite steep (complete costs 40€ here, which also has the not-so-good Colonization remake) and there's really not reason to buy it on Steam.

Instead, just buy the cIV Complete Edition from amazon.com for 1/4th of the price.



ciV seems to become a very different game anyway, so you'll be able to play both of them at the same time, depending on what type of civ experience you want.

[/quote]

Steam has the base game for $20 or the complete bundle for $30. Then again, I've never played a real Civ game ever, so I don't really know what to expect. I'll take a look on Amazon for what deals they've got.

[/quote]



cIV without BTS is only half the fun.

[Melon]

I played about five minutes of Darksiders.



Stupid game.



For Ap - crappy character designs with crappy storyline combined with piss poor controls (I am not going to hold down the front shoulder button+back shoulder button of opposite side to activate something and what's up with the damn one button attack) with a crappy framerate and shoddy upscaled ps2 era graphics. I threw the controller down in disgust. :|

[Ap2000]

http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/54923/Ne...-Unveiled-At-E3

HHHHNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGG-



Please let it be anything different than shitty 18th/19th century crap ("eschews gunpowder"), hopefully it will be World War 1-centered. (or Shogun 2)

[al kusanagi]

Finished up Alan Wake and already starting another play through. It's like a great suspense movie where, once you know the whole story, you can go back and watch it again to pick up all the little clues you wouldn't notice the first time. My only complaint would be the length, but even at 12 hours to complete, I'll probably go through it at least one more time, and there's a few more DLC chapters coming that will add a bit more to it. Definitely my Game of the Year so far in 2010. Too bad it'll largely go ignored since it came out the same day as Red Read Redemption...

[AEUGNewtype]

[quote name='Petit Melon' post='80069' date='May 21 2010, 05:01 PM']I played about five minutes of Darksiders.



Stupid game.



For Ap - crappy character designs with crappy storyline combined with piss poor controls (I am not going to hold down the front shoulder button+back shoulder button of opposite side to activate something and what's up with the damn one button attack) with a crappy framerate and shoddy upscaled ps2 era graphics. I threw the controller down in disgust. :|[/quote]

Damn, sounds like Sony out-did themselves again by having atrocious performance of games. I got 100% completion on everything in Darksiders and never had even one performance issue. It ran and controlled great from start to finish and was a damn fun game, but of course I played it on 360.



[quote name='Al Kusanagi' post='80083' date='May 22 2010, 11:09 AM']Finished up Alan Wake and already starting another play through. It's like a great suspense movie where, once you know the whole story, you can go back and watch it again to pick up all the little clues you wouldn't notice the first time. My only complaint would be the length, but even at 12 hours to complete, I'll probably go through it at least one more time, and there's a few more DLC chapters coming that will add a bit more to it. Definitely my Game of the Year so far in 2010. Too bad it'll largely go ignored since it came out the same day as Red Read Redemption...[/quote]

Good to hear, I'm definitely going to be playing it, but since I bought 5 Japanese 360 games this month, I'm either gonna have to rent Alan Wake or just wait a bit til it goes down in price. I could afford it, but I've started to realized lately how quickly American games drop in price and really have very little incentive to buy them early anymore unless I just can't wait to play them. The only ones I've bought on their release week this year were BioShock 2 and Splinter Cell Conviction. And BioShock 2 still sits on my shelf unplayed since the day I bought it and has already gone down to $40, but SC was worth it.

[Melon]

[quote name='The☆AEUGNewtype' post='80085' date='May 22 2010, 12:15 PM']Damn, sounds like Sony out-did themselves again by having atrocious performance of games. I got 100% completion on everything in Darksiders and never had even one performance issue. It ran and controlled great from start to finish and was a damn fun game, but of course I played it on 360.[/quote]



Stupid thing is, the PS3 version was bought because people said it was the better version. :| But really, it was the character designs and "plot" that mostly killed it for me. I got to some story scene in the beginning with all these shoddy designs and crap lines and couldn't play anymore. It just rubbed me the wrong way.



Speaking of shoddy PS3 ports, Red Dead Redemption is freaking awesome on the 360. My brother has the PS3 version and it doesn't look nearly as nice.



But right now I'm playing 3D Dot Game Heroes, aka RPG of the Year! <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... iggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':(' /> It's such a nostalgiabomb and so fantastical!

[Ap2000]

[quote name='Petit Melon' post='80069' date='May 21 2010, 11:01 PM']I played about five minutes of Darksiders.



Stupid game.



For Ap - crappy character designs with crappy storyline combined with piss poor controls (I am not going to hold down the front shoulder button+back shoulder button of opposite side to activate something and what's up with the damn one button attack) with a crappy framerate and shoddy upscaled ps2 era graphics. I threw the controller down in disgust. :|[/quote]



Sank yu.



I will still check out the upcoming PC version though. =P

[AEUGNewtype]

But really, it was the character designs and "plot" that mostly killed it for me. I got to some story scene in the beginning with all these shoddy designs and crap lines and couldn't play anymore. It just rubbed me the wrong way.

It was a fairly tongue-in-cheek/tacky kind of plot, so I definitely know what you mean, but I really don't pay attention to the plot in action games so much, so it never bothered me. I played the game so I could get sweet looking armor and more gigantic weapons to kill my foes with.

Speaking of shoddy PS3 ports, Red Dead Redemption is freaking awesome on the 360. My brother has the PS3 version and it doesn't look nearly as nice.

Yikes.