A PS4 Thread: Because You Had to Play "Knack"

I am impressed by scale and spectacle but Uncharted 1 was really lame compared to even the worst AC I've played, but I guess it's old and the later ones are (according to this thread) better.

uncharted 2 was a relentlessly entertaining thrill-ride when i played it back on ps3 but it's probably instructive that i've never played more than an hour or two into the remastered version despite owning it for like 18 months by this point

By all accounts (including this thread) they get better with each installment, but the earlier ones are worth playing for a few plot/thematic payoffs in 4, if anyone cares. The newest God of War afaict is more reboot than sequel.

witcher 3 is about exploring and characters and stories. if you go into it wanting an intense game with challenging fighting, you're probably not going to like it much (though i probably played it on easy mode). something that no one has mentioned is that it has sex scenes, which are embarrassing/funny, and you might not want anyone else around when those come up because you will be mortified.

uncharted games are about looking at them and saying "wow this looks great." you're supposed to play them as your first game in the console generation and/or if you got a new tv.

ha yeah, they're the videogame dark side of the moon

something that no one has mentioned is that it has sex scenes, which are embarrassing/funny, and you might not want anyone else around when those come up because you will be mortified.

Haha, this is so otm. Although I have to admit that after a while I was seeking out a sex scene (only saw one) because I wanted to experience it. I like Nathan for you

Geralt Sexhaver of Rivia

re: dq builders i haven't played it but have heard good things from everyone i know that has. it's obviously a Minecraft-esque crafting game but unlike Minecraft it's got quests/objectives, and afaik you don't just get to build out one town forever, once you finish a chapter you move on to a new one and start from scratch.

uncharted 2 is fun but it's way too scripted, and the fights are really, really bad

i've been holding in back to finish playing for ages but it's just not enjoyable enough anymore.

i heard the third one was merely so-so, but the fourth one was decent

in general most games seem worse after you've played BOTW

tru

Speaking of spectacle, I wonder how even well received/balanced games would be viewed/appreciated minus the cut scenes. For examples, Dark Souls, which I'm currently playing. Looks good, has a good sense of scale, but I wonder how it would play minus those handfuls of cut scenes introducing boss battles or new locations or whatnot. What if the game were purely mechanical. Would it be worse off without the animated cut scenes? Would any game? Or are those cut scenes - the apex of Hollywood-aping (or currently more like vice versa) spectacle - important or essential to the rhythm or balance of the game?

dark souls is an odd example to pick cuz the cutscenes are few and far-between and the game's story - which is unusually well thought-out for a game - is delivered almost entirely through the uniquely 'gamey' methods of environmental design and written descriptions of objects which are easy to entirely overlook

the arc of the ilx videogame discussion is long but it bends towards dark souls

No, I get that Dark Souls is something of an outlier in this nascent debate. I just meant that as relatively few the cut scenes may be, they still play a big role in establishing the scale and menace of the monsters. If you came across, say, the Gaping Dragon or O&S the same way you came across, say, the Capra Demon, they might not have as much impact. Or, say, the dramatic transport to Anor Londo, when in theory you could just poof appear there with no build up. The cut scenes definitely enhance the gameplay. Or maybe the (your) argument is that yeah, they do, but only because they are few and far between, which could be right. I haven't played enough of these AAA games to know what I'm in for. Doom certainly has some talky bits that offer a breather from the aggro. But I imagine stuff like Last of Us and Uncharted are very talky.

wow they were really bad i was not missing anything

― Mordy, Monday, November 26, 2018 6:22 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i just bought god of war and i'm totally not feeling it

in fact i'm close to not liking it at all but i'm slowly making progress

guy of war

god of chore

dad of bore
also Nathan Drake is the creepiest creep to have ever creeped

the characters aren't too annoying

Ten minutes of Kratos Jr in the new GoW had me trying to lop his head off.

Uncharted 4 looks amazing. Yes, it's on rails and designed so that the casualest of players can complete it but I still found it satisfying if simple. Best climbing sim ever.

Nathan Drake is like do you like Indiana Jones and tomb raider but they’re not generic enough?

How are the Tomb Raider reboots? I've never played any of the Tomb Raiders, but they seem OK. Definitely another gather-and-craft sort of game, though, or so it seems.

I only played the first one but it was fun

if you like the on-rails, cinematic bombast and spectacle type of action game, GoW and Uncharted are fun and great. that said, the appeal obviously will wane with time since the graphics look shittier with each passing year

there aren't many (in the 3D era) like Metal Gear Solid that hold up, and those are mostly due to its bonkers story and characters

The cut scenes in Dark Souls definitely add something, but part of the reason why they're effective is that they happen so rarely, and they never last long enough to make you forget you're playing a game.

Similarly there's only one non-boss area in the game that has background music, and so it's really striking when you hear it.

The lack of music is indeed pretty cool and/or unnerving!

xpost I don't know, all these AAA games seem pretty broadly generic to me, or at the least rooted to some pretty clear antecedents and inspirations. Something like Celeste seemed pretty original to me (but too hard). But gameplay aside, Dark Souls is still dude with sword fights the dragon. Doom (again, as a relatively renewed gamer who hadn't done much in years) had some pretty novel gameplay - you are rewarded for being aggressive, which is the opposite of hide-and-snipe trends - but the game itself is just an action movie. I haven't played it yet, but Bloodborne seems like a more original sort of idea built out of the DS template.

I should say, from my perspective, all these graphics, even older games, look cool to me, since I've never played anything more advanced than the Wii.

i'm playing god of war on the ps4 pro on a 4k tv and the graphics are probably the best thing it has going for it

it's probably the best looking game (better than red dead 2 in some ways)

better looking than red dead 2 in some ways*

But I imagine stuff like Last of Us and Uncharted are very talky.

uncharted is the answer to What if Indiana Jones wasn't charming at all, but everyone around him still treated him like he was charming for some reason

like Indiana Jones

however you would rate indiana jones on the charm scale, nathan drake is 1/100th as charming

I haven't played it yet, but Bloodborne seems like a more original sort of idea built out of the DS template.

I haven't played any DS games, but currently working through BB, and gameplay-wise, it's not a break from convention IMO. It's a rogue-like hack/slash/ROLLGODDAMMIT game.

I found Drake charming, I am a bad ilxor. ._.

roguelike means you start the game over from the beginning every time you die, it's not one of those

Heh, Dark Souls is like the opposite: you die, you still have all your stuff, you know where all your other stuff is and can get it back, but ... sometimes you just don't want to.

Bloodborne does have a rogue-like mode though (the chalice dungeons, which can be randomly generated and don't have much in the way of checkpoints iirc).

I'M SORRY GUYS I DON'T KNOW WHAT MEANS A ROGUE-LIKE.

I feel like the core feature of a rogue-like is what ciderpress said - no saves. There are other aspects people sometimes mean when they say roguelike like procedurally generated maps or ascii or tile graphics but they seem less core to the genre. i wouldn't consider daggerfall a roguelike even tho huge swaths of it are procedurally generated bc basically unlimited saves. otoh i do kinda consider super hexagon a roguelike bc it resets every time you lose and requires you to develop skills over countless plays in order to progress through it. wasn't there a new term tho for the current crop of roguelikes bc the original roguelikes were like actually like rogue like they were nethack or whatever? roguelite maybe?

the two elements that define a roguelike imo are:
1) permanent death - when you die you start over from the beginning
2) randomly generated content - you're not playing the exact same game each time you start over

roguelite is what people use for the ones that let you carry certain abilities or traits or whatever to your next run so there's a small amount of permanent progress

so, roguelike = buddhism

lol

Ten minutes of Kratos Jr in the new GoW had me trying to lop his head off.

hah yeah I can see that. There's a section later on where he gets super-bratty, that's really irksome. The story is actually pretty good, by the standards of blockbuster console games, I think.

so much qualification in this thread, sad sigh
genre/"trash" is ok! love it!

i admit, i probably did it myself

most videogames are extremely bad on any number of levels tho tbf

The recent Tomb Raider reboot is interesting to play, with a lot of modern traits (hope you enjoy ducking behind cover), but there are long sections where it's an amazing simulation of a young woman terrified for her life or in serious injury.

Add that to the lovingly-detailed "you have died" animations (and yeah, I know they were in the originals, but Lara is no longer 24 polygons) and I couldn't shake the feeling that there was a hidden commentary track of the developers fapping to it.

I understand the next two are better in this regard.

Before I got back into games, I thought the Conan video on this was pretty shocking

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCe8-1dbXZc

Funny, I heard the most recent Tomb Raider - Shadow of the Tomb Raider - was among the most problematic, with the lead almost the antagonist. Certainly damaged and destructive.

you guys are nuts! God of War is great at what it is trying to be not I'm not sure how it could be much better . plus it was on sale for $21

when you can pay $21 you just gotta

Kratos’s pathos never hit home for me, so that’s one thing it could’ve been better at. It is fun to play, but I’ve had no desire to go back to it after beating it.

My Nier finally arrived!