2012 VGA's

[Alcoremortis]

Originally Posted by der_ketzer

He'd just say it's random. Which it is. But he wouldn't know that the difficulty does not com from the randomness but from the game being out to murder you horribly.

I know. I had a nearly perfect run in terms of best equipment, best mix of skills, etc... breezed through nearly every level... and Dredmor still killed me at the end. Repeatedly.

[GaryCXJk]

Originally Posted by Shadowknight1

Agreed. What I've seen and played, it's a fantastic looking game. Still, I won't be one of those that says "This award means nothing" just because it's the VGAs. The fact that a smaller studio won that award does mean something. Heck, the fact that Journey was nominated means something.

The fact that Journey won ANY award, and no less than three on that, says enough.

[Secret Fawful]

Originally Posted by Shadowknight1

Agreed. What I've seen and played, it's a fantastic looking game. Still, I won't be one of those that says "This award means nothing" just because it's the VGAs. The fact that a smaller studio won that award does mean something. Heck, the fact that Journey was nominated means something.

I wonder if the Grammy nominated composer of Journey felt that way when he was handed his VGA on the red carpet before the show began.

[GaryCXJk]

Yeah, in that regard the VGA was pretty shite. From what I've heard only four awards were actually handed on-stage.

[Irishmile]

Im guessing there are some unseen budget concerns that prevented them from airing everyone getting their awards on stage.. maybe they couldnt afford to book the venue.. or dedicate that much airtime... but it was still a darn shame.. to see some of these people cheated out of their moment to shine in front of their friends and peers.

[Shadowknight1]

Originally Posted by Secret Fawful

I wonder if the Grammy nominated composer of Journey felt that way when he was handed his VGA on the red carpet before the show began.

While I think it's amazing that a video game soundtrack is finally getting recognition(it's about bloody time, I've heard better soundtracks out of Mario and Zelda than some films for years), I don't think Journey's going to get the Grammy. I'd love to be proven wrong, but my bet's on The Dark Knight Rises.

[thestalkinghead]

Originally Posted by Alcoremortis

How about Dungeons of Dredmor, then? Half the achievements are about dying in interesting ways. Because you die. A lot.

And it's turn-based, so tons of time for thought.

i own both FTL and Dungeons of Dredmor on steam and i have played FTL for just over 37 hours (i enjoy problem solving and planning) but only just over 2 hours into Dungeons of Dredmor and i don know if i would count all the deaths in Dungeons of Dredmor as making it hard because you are expected to die, i prefer a normal RPG over rouglikes where you are expected to compete the game but they make it hard (in my opinion) like baldur's gate

[Hazevamp]

Originally Posted by Secret Fawful

You're right.

After seeing how the awardees were treated in the pre-show, it's impossible to treat this award with any REAL favor. It's a really big deal that Telltale beat out games like AC3, though, in such a shallow show.

It doesn't surprise me that AC3 lost. I love the AC series as a whole but AC3 was the weakest. Story sucked, main character sucked, controls sucked, and it was full of pointless side quests to make up for a very brief and badly written story. However, I don't think TWD truly deserved the title and most certainly not best adapted game. I would give it to ME3 before I would TWD even though ME3's ending was disappointing, at least I had three choices whereas TWD gives nothing. If anything the award will just tell them that their game was fine the way it was and season 2 of the game will be the same old same old. If anything, fans of the show itself gave it the vote regardless of whether they've played it or not.

[MusicallyInspired]

Originally Posted by thestalkinghead

when presented with a level on Super Meat Boy you basically instantly know what to do (obviously some thought is required but that part is easy) the game is about making fiddly reaction based moves to finish the level, in my opinion that doesnt make a game dificult just fiddly, and i didn't say it was easier than TWD, i said "you can describe a game as hard or easy depending on how you look at it" and the way i look at Super Meat Boy is that it is an easy game with an irritating control system

There are two separate aspects of a game's difficulty. The difficulty of figuring out what to do, and then the difficulty of actually carrying that out. Some games have one or the other, some have both, and some have neither. Games that have neither are terrible games (good story or no, in my opinion. It shouldn't be a game if it has no gameplay challenge). I suppose it's all down to opinion on whether or not games that have one or the other are bad or good. I personally like having both difficult. It also depends on how they're presented I guess.

You could have a game that's easy to figure out but stupid hard to accomplish. Or really difficult to figure out but once you do it's a cakewalk. Whether or not it's annoying depends on how fun the game makes the challenge and how satisfying the reward of accomplishing it is.

I get your outlook on SMB. I've felt this way about more than a few games in my life and they have pushed me to the point of cheating just to get by the dumb section. But it also matters what the purpose of the game is. Is it more to try and figure out what to do (like an adventure/puzzle game) or to try and actually accomplish it with all the obstacles and challenges that stand between it and you (like SMB)? And which do you enjoy more? And then there's a thousand flavours of either.

Something like BTTF, on the other hand, was neither difficult to figure out or to accomplish. And the story was just ok. It survived purely on nostalgia. I haven't met a single player who has never heard of BTTF and yet enjoyed the game. Then again, I enjoyed The Stanley Parable and Dear Esther which have basically no gameplay whatsoever, but rather interactive narrative. I guess experience is worth something by itself once in a while. But in those cases the interactivity was treated as something special. I don't know, it felt different.

TWD, from what I've played and seen, is not bad story-wise, but the puzzles are fairly simple. I like that you can walk and that there are actual game puzzles beyond QTE, but it still pales in comparison to the adventure greats of years passed. Not my cup of tea. And I loved the storytelling of the comic and show.

I guess I'm just thinking out loud.

[thestalkinghead]

TWD is not a puzzle game, i to enjoy the old school point and click adventure games, but that is not what TWD is, the "challenge" in the game is the moral choices made and the personal relationships that can be formed by the choices you make and the things you say, if there were hard puzzles in TWD it would break the reality that is created by the brilliant story telling and acting that the game has, and also some arbitrary choice at the end of the game of red, blue or green would just ruin it, in my opinion that isn't what "choose your own ending" should mean, if you are going to affect the ending it should be multiple choices throughout the game that change it, not one choice at the end.

[Shadowknight1]

Originally Posted by Hazevamp

It doesn't surprise me that AC3 lost. I love the AC series as a whole but AC3 was the weakest. Story sucked, main character sucked, controls sucked, and it was full of pointless side quests to make up for a very brief and badly written story. However, I don't think TWD truly deserved the title and most certainly not best adapted game. I would give it to ME3 before I would TWD even though ME3's ending was disappointing, at least I had three choices whereas TWD gives nothing. If anything the award will just tell them that their game was fine the way it was and season 2 of the game will be the same old same old. If anything, fans of the show itself gave it the vote regardless of whether they've played it or not.

ME3?! That's not an adaptation.

[RingmasterJ5]

Originally Posted by thestalkinghead

TWD is not a puzzle game, i to enjoy the old school point and click adventure games, but that is not what TWD is, the "challenge" in the game is the moral choices made and the personal relationships that can be formed by the choices you make and the things you say, if there were hard puzzles in TWD it would break the reality that is created by the brilliant story telling and acting that the game has, and also some arbitrary choice at the end of the game of red, blue or green would just ruin it, in my opinion that isn't what "choose your own ending" should mean, if you are going to affect the ending it should be multiple choices throughout the game that change it, not one choice at the end.

Yes, I see that. What I'm trying to say is that TTG pretty much made a visual choose-your-own-adventure novel and got more money than ever compared to any of their original adventure games. Why would they want to go back to Sam and Max or something when they can make twice as much money with TWD?

[thestalkinghead]

Originally Posted by RingmasterJ5

Yes, I see that. What I'm trying to say is that TTG pretty much made a visual choose-your-own-adventure novel and got more money than ever compared to any of their original adventure games. Why would they want to go back to Sam and Max or something when they can make twice as much money with TWD?

i get what you mean, hopefully the money they made can mean that it wont be a trade of one game for the other, hopefully they can make both

[Alcoremortis]

Originally Posted by thestalkinghead

i own both FTL and Dungeons of Dredmor on steam and i have played FTL for just over 37 hours (i enjoy problem solving and planning) but only just over 2 hours into Dungeons of Dredmor and i don know if i would count all the deaths in Dungeons of Dredmor as making it hard because you are expected to die, i prefer a normal RPG over rouglikes where you are expected to compete the game but they make it hard (in my opinion) like baldur's gate

This is preferences. I loved Baldur's Gate as well, mainly due to needing to strategize to get past any battle, but I feel Dungeons of Dredmor is very similar in scope. My most recent character I spent a lot of time trying to figure out skills that would complement each other well and allow this character to succeed in all the ways the dungeon demands and then level up the skills in a way that would be beneficial to completing the dungeon (get the defense up first and then start working on the offense). This character made it to level 15, whereas my previous best attempt only made it to level 9.

It's the same with Legend of Grimrock. I spent a lot of time figuring out how I was going to structure my group so that I'd have balance and versatility.

I would agree that certain types of games have gone downhill. RTS in particular. Starcraft II is pretty much the only big RTS that's been released recently and the campaign was super easy, especially compared to the original. But I think it was because of the emphasis on the multi-player.

[RingmasterJ5]

Originally Posted by thestalkinghead

i get what you mean, hopefully the money they made can mean that it wont be a trade of one game for the other, hopefully they can make both

Why would they want to, though? The reality is that TWD has MANY times the fanbase as Sam and Max does, so why would they bring out a game that would likely cost about the same to make but get them less than half of what TWD made?

[der_ketzer]

Originally Posted by thestalkinghead

the "challenge" in the game is the moral choices made

In the end the moral choices don't matter as much as you are making it out to be. I liked the way TWD adjusted to me, little things characters remembered etc. But you still got through the game no matter what you did as long as you didn't fail the QTEs that you can win (in Episode 5 there are some you aren't supposed to win and that you cannot win).
I think the most challenging QTE was at the end of Episode 2 because you really need to be fast or die. But then again you restart just a few seconds before that.

[thestalkinghead]

Originally Posted by RingmasterJ5

Why would they want to, though? The reality is that TWD has MANY times the fanbase as Sam and Max does, so why would they bring out a game that would likely cost about the same to make but get them less than half of what TWD made?

i couldn't even come close to answering that, i don't know how their business is set up or the desires of the people who work there or whether it would be possible for them to work on two games, i guess we will find out

Originally Posted by der_ketzer

In the end the moral choices don't matter as much as you are making it out to be. I liked the way TWD adjusted to me, little things characters remembered etc. But you still got through the game no matter what you did as long as you didn't fail the QTEs that you can win (in Episode 5 there are some you aren't supposed to win and that you cannot win).
I think the most challenging QTE was at the end of Episode 2 because you really need to be fast or die. But then again you restart just a few seconds before that.

the QTE's aren't supposed to be hard just add to the immersion, there is no win or loose condition in TWD, and morality is a personal thing that affects the way you feel, sure the game is reasonably linear but the impact it has on you can change depending on how you play the game, if you want high scores or a win and loose condition TWD is not the game for you

[der_ketzer]

Originally Posted by Alcoremortis

Starcraft II is pretty much the only big RTS that's been released recently and the campaign was super easy, especially compared to the original.

The campaign is as easy as you make it. If you are not trained in RTS and want to get all the achievements for a mission before you move on you will get stuck pretty soon.
If you set it to a low difficulty and blitz through it just to get your bullshit ending (and yes it is bullshit to sell you the next full price campaign) then it will be just that. The game has several skill levels. If you think it's easy on highest settings well okay. I think it's impossible.

[MusicallyInspired]

Originally Posted by RingmasterJ5

Why would they want to go back to Sam and Max or something when they can make twice as much money with TWD?

Devil's Playhouse, from the beginning when it was released, always felt like it was a final sendoff to TTG's old adventure fans. They even changed the game mechanics quite a bit. Perhaps in an effort to warm those fans up to what was coming? I don't think we'll see anything like that again, anyway. I doubt we'll be seeing another Sam & Max. At least not in the near future. And by near future I mean 5-10 years or something. If ever.

Perhaps another adventure developer will cut a deal with Purcell for a new Sam & Max adventure game.

[Alcoremortis]

Originally Posted by der_ketzer

The campaign is as easy as you make it. If you are not trained in RTS and want to get all the achievements for a mission before you move on you will get stuck pretty soon.
If you set it to a low difficulty and blitz through it just to get your bullshit ending (and yes it is bullshit to sell you the next full price campaign) then it will be just that. The game has several skill levels. If you think it's easy on highest settings well okay. I think it's impossible.

I set it to something in the middle (can't remember what the settings were) when I first tried it and didn't have time to try any other settings, but I guess my real issue here is that the original Starcraft didn't have difficulty settings. It just had a campaign that was tailored to start out at a lower setting to teach you the basics and then ramp up into seemingly impossible challenges by the end. And I would have preferred that. I don't like having to guess at what level of player I am. I could have started at the highest setting and worked my way down

One of my favorite RTS games, Age of Empires II, had an easy setting the equivalent of most moderate or difficult settings in other strategy games. I never beat that game until a few years ago, when I tried to give it another shot now that I kinda understood how strategy actually worked... and even then there was a level that I only beat by the skin of my teeth.

Easy has turned from a setting that slowly ramps up over time to handholding. And at a certain point, the difficult difficulty settings cease to be about whether you are analyzing your situation correctly and more about how many hotkeys you have memorized and how fast you can hit them. I honestly don't play often enough for that.

I guess what I really wanted was a "the campaign was designed to play at this setting" button and then options to make it harder or easier if you needed it.