Video Game Chat Thread - Pre-Alpha Experimental Version

Are videogames for children?

  • Total voters
    8
  • Poll closed .
The Ugly One said:
Doom Eternal was on sale, so I picked it up. I just finished the first level, and man...I think I'm on the side of the haters. Conceptually, it's more like Serious Sam with really tiny ammo pools than Doom, just arenas of constantly-spawning enemies connected by hallways. It's fun enough, I guess, but it just makes me wish it was more like Doom.
Click to expand...
My experience wasn't the best, despite the mechanics themselves being pretty snappy.

It just felt like this.
doom maps be like.png
 
1000089854.webp

It’s kind of funny because GTA is the only game franchise where the old entries are completely irrelevant. No one recommends GTA 1 or 2, not even Rockstar superfans. GTA 1 in particular feels like a motion-sickness simulator with Game Boy Color graphics and missions that feel like errands.

1000089856.webp

There’s technically stuff to like, but only if you’re willing to forgive a lot. There’s no real story, your "backstory" you piece together from phone messages: ex–pizza delivery driver (hehe), girlfriend dumped him, lives with his mom, bleeding money on sports bets....Basically you're the Postal Dude? The city maps are huge and you will get lost. A map is mandatory, if only so you can find the stupid Pay ‘n’ Sprays.

1000089859.png

The soundtrack, amusingly, isn’t bad: original songs, half of them unintelligible, but the techno station slaps. And as always, the best part of GTA is the screaming pedestrians, even in the first one, their little digitized yelps when you fire a gun are great.

1000089861.jpg

GTA: London was Rockstar’s weird little... DLC? You literally need the GTA 1 ROM just to run it. It’s easier than GTA 1 and kind of stupid in its own way, full of Cockney slang and reggae deep cuts.

1000089862.png

GTA 2 takes place in this weird Blade Runner dystopia. The main guy’s just fresh out of cryosleep, but I like to pretend it’s the same loser from GTA 1, just defrosted in the future.:story:

1000089863.jpg

They made the bad decision to have different dev teams work on each level, so quality swings. The lighting effects look incredible in the Dreamcast/PC version but it’s so dark you’ll hit every car and pedestrian.:stress:

1000089864.png

The Zaibatsu missions are the least memorable, Rockstar is trying to parody Omni Consumer Products, but here they’re just dumb mobsters. Their cars are cool, their neighborhoods look good, but the missions blow ass.

RANKINGS!

Best 2D game: GTA 2, not especially good or bad, the most functional.
Best Radio station: Heavenly Radio. “I prefer God to my kids!”
Best gang: Rednecks. Every mission is a Waco simulator.
Best villain: Samuel Deever, head of the Vice Squad. Best villain in any GTA. He’s too beautifully degenerate to describe.
Best weapon: Flamethrower. Kills enemies instantly.
Worst weapon: Also the flamethrower. Kills me instantly.

1000089865.png
 
Last edited:
Corgis said:
I recommend GTA 2 :c
Click to expand...
1000089870.jpg

Actually, nope, I tell a lie. There’s like this whole Slavic community built around GTA2 modding and co-op.
Loony missions are also fun, you just do deranged terrorism for no good reason.
Click to expand...
Loonies are the easiest gang to work for. I usually just plow through their missions downtown because you don’t need to pledge allegiance to anyone else to unlock the next district (plus Downtown sucks, anyways).

What’s strange is, the Zaibatsu are supposed to be these corporate types but their missions are just nonstop carnage. Out of curiosity, I checked the result screen working for the Loonies versus Zaibatsu, with the Loonies, maybe I killed 10 people total. With Zaibatsu it was in the hundreds.
 
Last edited:
The Ugly One said:
In 25 years online, any time I've said I don't like a game, there's always somebody to say he beat it 30 times on max difficulty without dying once, I love the internet.

Glad you enjoyed the jumping puzzles, really happy for you.
Click to expand...
I'm with you on Doom Eternal being pretty "eh." The jumping puzzles and overall speed/complexity of the combat didn't filter me, but the mood and the tone eventually did. The explicit arcade-style extra lives were an early red flag, because I couldn't shake the feeling that the only purpose they served was "hey this is a cheeky self-aware sendup, DO YOU GET IT?" I don't remember how far I got before I just couldn't take any more of its pretending-to-be-retarded shtick. I thought the combat flow was great, but the game wouldn't shut up with all its fart-huffing and overwrought World-building™.
 
Bob's Fuckass Head said:
The jumping puzzles and overall speed/complexity of the combat didn't filter me
Click to expand...

What I really dislike about the combat is how anti-strategic it is. You have no idea what you'll be fighting, since the enemies keep spawning in, so it's just REACT REACT REACT REACT REACT REACT. It's maximally brainless. It's not like Doom II was 4D chess, but monster spawn arenas are the absolute nadir of level design, keeping everything as twitch-focused as possible, while making the environment mostly irrelevant. I got tired of this style of level design midway through Serious Sam: Second Encounter, and that was 23 years ago.
 
The Ugly One said:
What I really dislike about the combat is how anti-strategic it is. You have no idea what you'll be fighting, since the enemies keep spawning in, so it's just REACT REACT REACT REACT REACT REACT. It's maximally brainless. It's not like Doom II was 4D chess, but monster spawn arenas are the absolute nadir of level design, keeping everything as twitch-focused as possible, while making the environment mostly irrelevant. I got tired of this style of level design midway through Serious Sam: Second Encounter, and that was 23 years ago.
Click to expand...
I'd have to think a while to try and understand why that arena style doesn't bother me, but I agree Eternal was so twitch-oriented that it doesn't leave any room for the player to consciously strategize mid-fight. I figured that if I got wrecked and needed to repeat a section, the repetition would be where I strategized until I cracked the puzzle of that encounter. I probably would have kept playing if I hadn't started hating all the gay maximalist fluff they kept shoving in my face. "Look at your giant magic space fortress! Look at all this collectible and unlockable content we added for you to consooooom!" Barf.
 
Decided to have a quick skirmish 4 v 4 with CPU players. It turned in to 3 v 1 and it was not fast at all.SCScrnShot.jpg
 
Bob's Fuckass Head said:
I'd have to think a while to try and understand why that arena style doesn't bother me, but I agree Eternal was so twitch-oriented that it doesn't leave any room for the player to consciously strategize mid-fight. I figured that if I got wrecked and needed to repeat a section, the repetition would be where I strategized until I cracked the puzzle of that encounter. I probably would have kept playing if I hadn't started hating all the gay maximalist fluff they kept shoving in my face. "Look at your giant magic space fortress! Look at all this collectible and unlockable content we added for you to consooooom!" Barf.
Click to expand...
The plot and setting are incredibly gay. I didn't think I could care about the plot of Doom, but changing it from Joe Recruit kicking demon ass because shit went down and that's just what Joe's gotta do to this overblown wannabe God of War + Darksider bullshit really left a bad taste in my mouth.

What I really hate about spawn arenas is the trial & error based nature of the fight. Effectively every fight is against an unknown number of secret enemies that will appear until they're done appearing, no way to know when, no way to know how many. Just keep doing DODGE SHOOT SHOOT GLORYKILL DODGE SHOOT SHOOT GLORYKILL until the spawn script is done executing. Stood in the wrong place when the two Barons spawned in? Oh well, try again! And this is every fight, every single one.

There's no meaningful variety. One arena has two jump pads and lava, another has four jump pads and an electrified floor. Yawn. Because even the zombies can leap and climb effortlessly, there isn't and can't be any structure. No revenant sniper towers, imp-infested ledges, or what have you. Every fight is just an incoherent mess of monsters jumping around everywhere.
 
The Ugly One said:
In 25 years online, any time I've said I don't like a game, there's always somebody to say he beat it 30 times on max difficulty without dying once, I love the internet.

Glad you enjoyed the jumping puzzles, really happy for you.
Click to expand...
det1.png
det2.png

well well well, seems it's not so easy now that you're actually playing it... now who needs a friendly revenant
 
What I disliked about Doom Eternal was that certain arenas felt like I was playing Quake 3 against bots in small DM maps that had those movement loops to go through, that really bothered me. It was like that Iron Maiden song. "Over, under, jump pads, turning, going in again! Over, under, jump pads..."
 
Smaug's Smokey Hole 2 said:
What I disliked about Doom Eternal was that certain arenas felt like I was playing Quake 3 against bots in small DM maps that had those movement loops to go through, that really bothered me. It was like that Iron Maiden song. "Over, under, jump pads, turning, going in again! Over, under, jump pads..."
Click to expand...
Played the shit out of Eternal when I got it. However, I do see what you mean. It feels nothing like DOOM except maybe the few times you have to go through the semi-mazes to find secrets.

I am probably one of the few that believe DOOM isn't DOOM without full on mazes. There is so much you can do with the 3D Maze Shooter idea. Yet, all most devs/modders do is make linear experiences with little substance. For any other boomer shooter, that is fine, but with games like Wolfenstein 3D & DOOM? It feels like something is missing.
 
Blue Miaplacidus said:
Anyone played this https://store.steampowered.com/app/1757300/Jump_Space/
Couldn't find any threads about it. I am dying to play something "space". Since there never will be an EvE online 2 or anything like it, looking for something to scratch the itch and this looks entertaining enough on the surface.
View attachment 8095978
Click to expand...
I’ve got multiple hours in it. It’s fun but kind of light on content. Definitely recommend playing it with friends over solo, but you can solo play easily on the lower difficulty missions.
 
SirThomasMaloryII said:
Played the shit out of Eternal when I got it. However, I do see what you mean. It feels nothing like DOOM except maybe the few times you have to go through the semi-mazes to find secrets.

I am probably one of the few that believe DOOM isn't DOOM without full on mazes. There is so much you can do with the 3D Maze Shooter idea. Yet, all most devs/modders do is make linear experiences with little substance. For any other boomer shooter, that is fine, but with games like Wolfenstein 3D & DOOM? It feels like something is missing.
Click to expand...
Even though I’m shit at most shooters and usually park it on whatever difficulty setting means normal, with Wolfenstein and Doom I always crank that shit up as far as I can reasonably go because it doesn’t feel like Doom or Wolfenstein unless you’re a little exposed, a little scared.

Yeah, E1M1 was a power fantasy but the later levels were demoralizing and demanded forethought.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom