New Releases for The Week of Spinning Blocks and Terrible Futures

Comments

1. 
   3 Oct 2011 ~ 3:56pm primesuspect Am I dumb in saying that Rage sounds a lot like Borderlands?
2. 
   3 Oct 2011 ~ 4:26pm pigflipper It does sound something like Borderlands, doesn't it?
3. 
   3 Oct 2011 ~ 5:23pm CB Well, Borderlands is an alien planet, while this is a post apocalyptic future Earth, but yeah, they're both gun toting, wasteland exploring, ugly-guy shooting, first-person shooters.
   
   I think a big difference, however, is that Borderlands feels like it was built around co-operative multi-player, while this one focuses on the single-player
4. 
   4 Oct 2011 ~ 12:31am pseudonym Dark Souls. Give me now.
5. 
   4 Oct 2011 ~ 10:15am kryyst Rage is similar to borderlands but a much smaller game, more of a straight forward shooter and less of the RPG hybrid.
   
   I'm very tempted by Dark Souls but my general schedule allows me to play for about an hour to an hour and a half at the most usually. So if the save function in that game is based around bonfires it's probably a useless game to me.
   
   [rant]every action/rpg/adventure game should provide the ability to save at anytime in this day and age. If you want to prevent people from saving and trying and then go back to a save and try something different. Just make it a save state style of save that destroys itself when you continue. It's ridiculous that more games don't allow for this. I fucking hate games that you need to play for at least 30+ minutes just to get to the next save point. Even worse are games where you need to complete the whole level in one sitting or you lose everything. It's fucking ridiculous[/rant]
6. 
   4 Oct 2011 ~ 12:13pm kryyst Doing a little research on Dark Souls and apparently it saves your progress every 3 steps and you can't revert to an older save ever. So it seems it would qualify for being able to play the game in smaller doses.
7. 
   4 Oct 2011 ~ 12:15pm primesuspect Yeah, I thought we left that madness behind in the 90's.
   
   I replayed Metroid (NES) recently, and I was thinking that the game is not necessarily difficult in the sense that you cannot accomplish the things you want to do... it's more frustrating because when you die as you are learning strategies, etc, or if you need more Energy Tanks before you can take on the boss or whatever, you get put SO FAR BACK. Leading up the fight with Mother Brain, you have full energy and missiles. If you die against her, you go back to the beginning of her zone with NO energy and missiles. You have to spend the next 45 minutes grinding little enemies to fill up your energy and missiles for another run. It's just plain bad design. It's not fun, that's for sure.
   
   A lot of the "OMG GAMES WERE HARD WHEN WE WERE KIDS" is just bad design and frustrating, useless grinds. I'm convinced.
8. 
   4 Oct 2011 ~ 2:28pm kryyst Part of me agrees entirely with you and part of me likes the challenge. What I hate though is death by poor controls or just poor design. If you die because you took on a foe that's to hard for you currently, that's fine. If you die because the camera is constantly getting stuck, the timing of jumps is just trial and error. That I can't stand.
   
   I can also accept a game that forces you to regrind your steps if you die. But if that is the design choice then put in a save & quit feature so that if I run out of time half way back I can at least pick-up where I left off. Don't make the only save point on the other side of the boss that's just stupid.
9. 
   4 Oct 2011 ~ 2:39pm primesuspect But there's no CHALLENGE in re-grinding low-level enemies just to fill up your health bar for a half an hour. It's pure rote repetitiveness and frustration.
10. 
    4 Oct 2011 ~ 3:07pm kryyst I wasn't speaking about Metroid specifically. Some games grinding feels purposeful because it's those areas of the games that you need to hang out in to develop your character. I actually don't enjoy RPG's where once you clear an area it never repopulates. I think back to the D&D crpg's. Where you can categorically go through and clear out the game leaving a barren waste behind you. It makes the game seem lifeless. Diablo exists on grinding.
    
    But in a platformer it's pretty dumb. The purpose is to get to the other side, that's the accomplishment.
11. 
    11 Oct 2011 ~ 3:09pm kryyst I've spent several hours now with Dark Souls. It's difficult but so far not unmanageable. If you rush through it you'll die. If you take it slow, pay attention and remember that you don't have to kill everything it's survivable. Generally it comes down to you being in the wrong area entirely for your level or you've hit a boss and you'll probably need a couple tries at it to figure out the patterns.
    
    It's definitely got an old school vibe to it from inventory management and the general pacing of the game. It saves every 30 seconds or so, which lends great to pick up and play. You will need to grind, hell you'll want to grind some areas of the game. Which is possibly a sticking point for some people.
    
    It's not an RPG in the Eldar Scrolls sense of the game. But you do have a role, you customize your character, you'll make decisions for that character as to how you tackle things. There are some NPC's to interact with in the world. But overall it's more about killing your way to the top then the telling of a story.