EPTIt appears that a lot of people are simply blinded by the polish of these games or its fully functioning gameplay. Just because it works does not mean that the game is inherently good.
If people do not care or question as to why a game is good, understand why the gameplay elements work or don't or remember that they spend money on it, then it becomes extremely easy for the game industry to push out games that are simply not of a good standard.
It, of course has happened already and is continuing to happen, where developers do not need to improve or evolve their games because they simply do not need to. They are not required to give it 100% dedication because, why bother? In a lot of instances such as CoD or Halo, they are guaranteed a huge, huge amount of sales. It is detrimental to the industry and to the developers themselves. How can you feel the need to produce a unique game when you know in the back of your mind that any old crap will garner as much sales, if not more?
Anyway, here is what I've wrote so far, my 3 oldest blogs I can paste here which started their lives on the TL boards anyway as more of kneejerk, long comments but I have since tidied them up:
Why Metal Gear Solid 4 is disappointing
+ Show Spoiler +
After seeing so much bitching about it not being on "THE LIST" (bum bum buuum) and seeing people bum this game on the PS3 forum I thought I'd share my thoughts on why this game does not deserve so much praise.
Let me start by saying that Metal Gear Solid 4 is and looks like a good game. Obviously the graphics are phenominal, it has a lot of content and the game works, you know, there is nothing stupid about the mechanics of the game. You can sit down, play the game and have pretty much a good experience.
However, while it may be a good game, it is a disappointing entry to the Metal Gear Solid series. There are three things that usually stand out the most in the series:
Story
Bosses
Characters
And we all know and love the gameplay that comes with it, however, 4 just seems to make a mess of this. If you're a fan of the series then you know that they are a unique set of games. Sure, you can treat the game like a maniac and shoot your way through anyone and everything but the series always offered a parallel to go with this.
The story is just infected wiNANOMACHINES constantly. Yes, it can be a likely reality but fuck me calm doWAR ECONOMY and give me a break. Every man and his dog is crammed full of NANOMACHINES in order to fuel the WAR ECONOMY and a load of shit happens. Maybe too much shit. I appreciate the story in MGS1 but this is just getting convoluted, it's like the end on MGS2 when you have Solidus banging on about SSS for god knows how long and then about 10 minutes later they tell you to just ignore all that and give you an essay on what SSS is really all about. I completed it and well, it was going to take another playthrough to understand just what in the fuck is going on which is not essentially a bad thing in games or movies, however just because it's confusing as fuck does not make it scoffingly brilliant, it's still confusing and debatable on whether all it was worth criss-crossing all day long.
Anyway I'll get to why I find MGS4 disappointing. Firstly, the bosses. Boss fights have always been the highlights of the games aswell as the bosses themselves. I'll go through each encounter:
1: Frogs
Not really a boss but it's the first kind of special encounter. It's done kind of poorly though. You sit behind cover popping these guys and they make it easy because they are so dumb. They walk at you with their P90's and you can keep gunning them down until you get bored and decide to greet them in the tight spaces just to get this encounter over faster. It could have been done better because having X amount of idiots is not better than having less X + less idiot and the AI could easily have been programmed to...I dunno, ACT like a special force agency? Even Johnny gets bored enough that he shits his pants for funsies (don't know what Meryl sees in him...)
2: Laughing Octopus
The setting is good. Camoflague is cool. Now how is it they fucked this up? There I was, armed by my wits (and some guns) and where...WHERE COULD SHE BE?
She taunts me
She laughs "HA HA HAAA"
She even explains that she is "I'M LAUGHING"
I creep along...gun at the reHU...hold on...is that...OH FUCK I THINK THAT'S HER! She's camoflagued on the wall...not bad Occy not bad...I'll creep a little forward...creep a little more...little more...
At this point my gun barrel is in her ass. What the hell is the point in this chick with her awesome camoflague if she doesn't even do shit with it? She literally just waits for you to grope her ass (more polite than shooting her). This setting is awesome, she should be hiding all around the room which she does and then JUMP THE FUCK OUT and SCARE THE SHIT OUT OF ME (and hurt me). What does she do? She waits around for you to shoot her and then does THE MOST ANNOYING fucking rolly-breakdance-flipflap that hurts Snake. Da fuck are you doing? This boss fight should be out of a horror movie, hell, Grey Fox knew what it was about in the office and that was years ago! Is this chick dumb?
So I mash her up and then HOLY FUCK she starts walking at me...well thanks for the easy target hun, let me replace your face with bullets.
After she's down, I get a phonecall from good old "I don't know who the fuck you are" Drebin. He explains some batshit tragic story about this chick.
This is one of the reasons why the game is disappointing. I don't know who the fuck that chick was. I don't know why the fuck she is here apart from being part of angrybitch squad. The only thing she has said to me is "HA HA HA" and "I'M LAUGHING" and some other retarded comments. She is literally a nobody to me and then when she dies, Drebin gives me a ring and starts talking about what a bad fucking life she had. She did?...well...the fuck you want me to do about it? I just fucking destroyed her. Her death makes zero impact on me right now...why didn't you tell me this before? Maybe I could have knocked her out or something or even felt a slight bit of pity knowing that the thing is see before me is just some very poor soul that's had a hard life (NOT AS HARD AS SNAKE
:D:D":"):AD.
This is one of the major problems. In MGS1 you share dialogue (you know, ACTUAL CONVERSATION) with a lot of the bosses before you even fight them. When you do get your fisticuffs out and they lay there in their own pool of blood dying, they talk to you. They *TALK*. They explain, they justify, they accept their fate and it is not just a one way thing. Snake talks to them. They are INTERESTING cutscenes because not only are the portrayed as human but also because Snake talks to them too. You begin to understand the situation, the setting and the characters.
What the fuck do we have here? "I'M LAUGHING" ok an"I'M RAGING" please let me fi"WAA WAA I CRY WOLFY" please just leave me alone.
These bosses are fillers. They are artificially put in the world and make very little difference to the game, to Snake and to the world.
Also, they're kind of stupid. It may be easy to forget but no one in MGS1 had super powers. Sure, Snake and Liquid were awesomepowers but everyone was HUMAN. Ocelot was pro at gun, Sniper Wolf was a...a Sniper Wolf. The tank was a tank with a big man called Vulcan Raven inside. Psycho Mantis was the only one that had a real power but even then it was kind of realistic. Hell I wouldn't have minded Vamp being...I guess a vampire that has a hard time dieing but then they ruined his whole mystic by saNANOMACHINES HE LIVES BECAUSE OF NANAMACHINES.
3: Raging Raven
Listen, if the boss fight is boring and non-captivating, then change it. Improve it. Don't just add loads of unmanned drones that add about NOTHING to the boss fight. This fight is just simply a matter of "shoot that fucking thing down so I can progress" situations.
Again, she goes down and ol' Drebin has concocted another sad story from his Greatest Hits Album. Oh really Drebin? She had a bad life too? Well, dunno if you heard but Johnny shat his pants earlier! Lol, take care, speak to you soon, bai.
4: Crying Wolf
Again this should have been an awesome fight but again it is plagued with stupid. The location is cool however the weather is a hell of a pain in the ass. I understand that a little snow and fog is cool but don't blind me with it, especially when this dog has aimbot + railgun I mean wtf admin ban? If this was a snipe off that required patience and stamina then it would have been cool. It would have been a nice sniper fight like the good old days. The fight takes long (one tick?) but that's because FUCKING FROGS keep parading around and falling asleep in the snow. I remember that not one of these Frogs actually fired their weapon at me, they were all too stupid and seemed to just wait for me to end their existence. So I had to keep popping these guys and dodge a god damn railgun. Come on man...is this a boss fight or just a level by itself?
5: Vamp
Vamp has been hit with the retarded stick. This is actually boring. ACTUALLY BORING. You can dodge everything he does by taking one step towards anything that looks remotely interesting on the map. He was pretty cool on 2, but now he likes...he's dancing and doing no damage. This boss fight is simply a matter of how long it takes you to realise you have to give him his flu shot. And then after, he goes and fights Raiden and they have a FUCKING AWESOME fight during the cutscene? Da fuck? DA FUCK? How about you let me fight that fight and Raiden can be the one to poke him with a needle?
6: METAL GEAR?!s
I may not be an experWAR ECONOMY on th...but having Gekkos rigged with explosives is just a waste of money. Who's bright idea was that? When Raiden has to blow up 4000 Rays in MGS2 that is a cool fight because you don't know how long it is gonna go on for and firing stinger missles and dodging lasers and shit was cool and intense. Now you have dumb Gekko and Co and it's simply a matter of lining them up and shooting away. What is this man...All the while Vamp and Raiden have some kick ass scene going on that you wish you could watch but you are too busy exploding Gekko's before they can...explode...
7: REX vs RAY
Finally...FINALLY SOMETHING COOL. How can this not be cool? Metal fucking Gear REX pilotted by Snake vs Metal Gear Ray. Each armed with awesomeness and programmed with some beat 'em up moves. Fuck yeah man, fuck yeah.
8: Screaming Mantis
Again, is this a boss fight or not? I want to fight a boss, I do not want to fight zombies. Either make your boss DECENT (you know, like a BOSS) or make this fight at least some what creative. Sure, it may have taken me awhile to realise that I have to shoot the most unthreatening thing in the place (his doll) and then pick up the doll. You know what you do with the doll? You throw it at him...or her...or it. You throw the doll anHOLY FUCK GG BOSS DOWN. I'm sure this encounter can be done in the seconds. The only challenge of this fight is how long it takes you to shoot a doll and throw it. eeeeeeehhhhhh...
9: SNAAAAAAAKE?! vs LIQUID!
This fight is beautiful. It is really, really well done. It's probably one of the best, if not the best boss fight I have encountered so far.
Characters and Dialogue
I was disappointed by this. Let's get one thing straight. I'm Solid Fucking Snake. I was a legend even before Shadow Moses. OK? Meryl is too busy wiping Johnny's ass to give two shits about oh I dunno THE GUY THAT'S BEEN SAVING THE FUCKING PLANET for the last x years. Maybe she's in to scat I just don't know...
Same thing with Mei Ling "ooooh I can't believe I'm getting hit on by the famous Soli Snaa!" and what does she say to me? SNAKE PLEASE NO SMOKE ON THE BOAT. DA FUCK? Take one fucking look at me. I'm a god damn broken man. I've been doing this unbelievable shit for god knows how long and no one gives a fuck about me? No one cares to ask about me except my chum OTACOOON? Aite well fuck you too bitch...
Big MAMA "YO SNAKE, I'M YOUR MOTHER THAT YOU NEVER KNEW ABOUT. YO SUP, OH SHIT I'M DEAD." Luckily Snake being such a bad ass doesn't seem to mind that much...
Liquid! I mean...Ocel...Ocelot? So you were Ocelot all along...? Da fuck? why you kill the magic? WHY YOU KILL THE MAGIC?!
Why didn't anyone die? Ok, Naomi did but it's a bit hard to care when I rescue her and then she fucks off again. Sure she helped save the world yadda yadda but whatever yo...
Raiden...Raiden should have fucking died. I was never a Raiden hater nor was I his lover but come on. When he gets himself mashed up by the big mother fucking boat and you get all those flashbacks I thought shit...fairplay Raiden, you were a bit of a dick but...you know, that was kinda cool of you to sacrafice yourself for Snake, nice onOH WAIT HE'S ALIVE! STICK HIM IN THE PLANE!
Oh Raiden, back to save Snake from the FROGS while he goes through that corridor of death (really cool by the way). It may look dumb but fairplay to you being all fucked up yet still fighting back, using the blade with your mouth to slice up the FROGs. Thank you for coming RaideOH SHIT THEY ALL JUST STABBED THE FUCK OUTTA YOU. Damn Raiden...your death will not be forgotteOH WAIT HE'S ALIVE AGAIN. Damnit Raiden for fuck sake. COME ON NOW. This is just not fair.
Don't know how in the hell Meryl and Johnny survived. I'm no doctor but judging from experience, bullets kill people. They didn't even have their nanomachines working! (ok Johnny never has them but) and yet they fucking survive all that? COME ON NOW...go have your wedding and get out of here.
I don't like the ability to purchase guns and ammo faster than you can sneeze any time you want in the game. What's the point in even attempting to infiltrate the locations when you can beam down a grenade launcher from the Enterprise any time you want? Where is the desperation? Where is the challenge?
They completely ruined Shadow Moses for me too. I stood there getting ready to sneak passed the camera when ut oh...I get spotted...what the...the fu...THE HELL IS THAT? A bowling ball with arms pops out so I shoot it. And then A MILLION MORE POP OUT and I'm shooting away at the end of the walkway having progressed minus from the ladder and in the end I just think fuck this and I jumped down and ran through the big door in to the snow field...
Also the whole "MULTIPLE WAYS TO GO THROUGH LEVEL" thing seems to boil down to shooting soldiers with the help of useless rebels (that are instantly befriended with a friendly wave) or to take the route that is making less decibels and then go round and shoot the soldiers in the back of the head...
Anyway, that's pretty much why I was disappointed with MGS4. It's a good game if you want some...good basic actiony/stealth/shootah but to anyone that expected something along the lines of a Metal Gear Solid game then it fell short in what made the series unique.
Let me start by saying that Metal Gear Solid 4 is and looks like a good game. Obviously the graphics are phenominal, it has a lot of content and the game works, you know, there is nothing stupid about the mechanics of the game. You can sit down, play the game and have pretty much a good experience.
However, while it may be a good game, it is a disappointing entry to the Metal Gear Solid series. There are three things that usually stand out the most in the series:
Story
Bosses
Characters
And we all know and love the gameplay that comes with it, however, 4 just seems to make a mess of this. If you're a fan of the series then you know that they are a unique set of games. Sure, you can treat the game like a maniac and shoot your way through anyone and everything but the series always offered a parallel to go with this.
The story is just infected wiNANOMACHINES constantly. Yes, it can be a likely reality but fuck me calm doWAR ECONOMY and give me a break. Every man and his dog is crammed full of NANOMACHINES in order to fuel the WAR ECONOMY and a load of shit happens. Maybe too much shit. I appreciate the story in MGS1 but this is just getting convoluted, it's like the end on MGS2 when you have Solidus banging on about SSS for god knows how long and then about 10 minutes later they tell you to just ignore all that and give you an essay on what SSS is really all about. I completed it and well, it was going to take another playthrough to understand just what in the fuck is going on which is not essentially a bad thing in games or movies, however just because it's confusing as fuck does not make it scoffingly brilliant, it's still confusing and debatable on whether all it was worth criss-crossing all day long.
Anyway I'll get to why I find MGS4 disappointing. Firstly, the bosses. Boss fights have always been the highlights of the games aswell as the bosses themselves. I'll go through each encounter:
1: Frogs
Not really a boss but it's the first kind of special encounter. It's done kind of poorly though. You sit behind cover popping these guys and they make it easy because they are so dumb. They walk at you with their P90's and you can keep gunning them down until you get bored and decide to greet them in the tight spaces just to get this encounter over faster. It could have been done better because having X amount of idiots is not better than having less X + less idiot and the AI could easily have been programmed to...I dunno, ACT like a special force agency? Even Johnny gets bored enough that he shits his pants for funsies (don't know what Meryl sees in him...)
2: Laughing Octopus
The setting is good. Camoflague is cool. Now how is it they fucked this up? There I was, armed by my wits (and some guns) and where...WHERE COULD SHE BE?
She taunts me
She laughs "HA HA HAAA"
She even explains that she is "I'M LAUGHING"
I creep along...gun at the reHU...hold on...is that...OH FUCK I THINK THAT'S HER! She's camoflagued on the wall...not bad Occy not bad...I'll creep a little forward...creep a little more...little more...
At this point my gun barrel is in her ass. What the hell is the point in this chick with her awesome camoflague if she doesn't even do shit with it? She literally just waits for you to grope her ass (more polite than shooting her). This setting is awesome, she should be hiding all around the room which she does and then JUMP THE FUCK OUT and SCARE THE SHIT OUT OF ME (and hurt me). What does she do? She waits around for you to shoot her and then does THE MOST ANNOYING fucking rolly-breakdance-flipflap that hurts Snake. Da fuck are you doing? This boss fight should be out of a horror movie, hell, Grey Fox knew what it was about in the office and that was years ago! Is this chick dumb?
So I mash her up and then HOLY FUCK she starts walking at me...well thanks for the easy target hun, let me replace your face with bullets.
After she's down, I get a phonecall from good old "I don't know who the fuck you are" Drebin. He explains some batshit tragic story about this chick.
This is one of the reasons why the game is disappointing. I don't know who the fuck that chick was. I don't know why the fuck she is here apart from being part of angrybitch squad. The only thing she has said to me is "HA HA HA" and "I'M LAUGHING" and some other retarded comments. She is literally a nobody to me and then when she dies, Drebin gives me a ring and starts talking about what a bad fucking life she had. She did?...well...the fuck you want me to do about it? I just fucking destroyed her. Her death makes zero impact on me right now...why didn't you tell me this before? Maybe I could have knocked her out or something or even felt a slight bit of pity knowing that the thing is see before me is just some very poor soul that's had a hard life (NOT AS HARD AS SNAKE
:D:D":"):AD.This is one of the major problems. In MGS1 you share dialogue (you know, ACTUAL CONVERSATION) with a lot of the bosses before you even fight them. When you do get your fisticuffs out and they lay there in their own pool of blood dying, they talk to you. They *TALK*. They explain, they justify, they accept their fate and it is not just a one way thing. Snake talks to them. They are INTERESTING cutscenes because not only are the portrayed as human but also because Snake talks to them too. You begin to understand the situation, the setting and the characters.
What the fuck do we have here? "I'M LAUGHING" ok an"I'M RAGING" please let me fi"WAA WAA I CRY WOLFY" please just leave me alone.
These bosses are fillers. They are artificially put in the world and make very little difference to the game, to Snake and to the world.
Also, they're kind of stupid. It may be easy to forget but no one in MGS1 had super powers. Sure, Snake and Liquid were awesomepowers but everyone was HUMAN. Ocelot was pro at gun, Sniper Wolf was a...a Sniper Wolf. The tank was a tank with a big man called Vulcan Raven inside. Psycho Mantis was the only one that had a real power but even then it was kind of realistic. Hell I wouldn't have minded Vamp being...I guess a vampire that has a hard time dieing but then they ruined his whole mystic by saNANOMACHINES HE LIVES BECAUSE OF NANAMACHINES.
3: Raging Raven
Listen, if the boss fight is boring and non-captivating, then change it. Improve it. Don't just add loads of unmanned drones that add about NOTHING to the boss fight. This fight is just simply a matter of "shoot that fucking thing down so I can progress" situations.
Again, she goes down and ol' Drebin has concocted another sad story from his Greatest Hits Album. Oh really Drebin? She had a bad life too? Well, dunno if you heard but Johnny shat his pants earlier! Lol, take care, speak to you soon, bai.
4: Crying Wolf
Again this should have been an awesome fight but again it is plagued with stupid. The location is cool however the weather is a hell of a pain in the ass. I understand that a little snow and fog is cool but don't blind me with it, especially when this dog has aimbot + railgun I mean wtf admin ban? If this was a snipe off that required patience and stamina then it would have been cool. It would have been a nice sniper fight like the good old days. The fight takes long (one tick?) but that's because FUCKING FROGS keep parading around and falling asleep in the snow. I remember that not one of these Frogs actually fired their weapon at me, they were all too stupid and seemed to just wait for me to end their existence. So I had to keep popping these guys and dodge a god damn railgun. Come on man...is this a boss fight or just a level by itself?
5: Vamp
Vamp has been hit with the retarded stick. This is actually boring. ACTUALLY BORING. You can dodge everything he does by taking one step towards anything that looks remotely interesting on the map. He was pretty cool on 2, but now he likes...he's dancing and doing no damage. This boss fight is simply a matter of how long it takes you to realise you have to give him his flu shot. And then after, he goes and fights Raiden and they have a FUCKING AWESOME fight during the cutscene? Da fuck? DA FUCK? How about you let me fight that fight and Raiden can be the one to poke him with a needle?
6: METAL GEAR?!s
I may not be an experWAR ECONOMY on th...but having Gekkos rigged with explosives is just a waste of money. Who's bright idea was that? When Raiden has to blow up 4000 Rays in MGS2 that is a cool fight because you don't know how long it is gonna go on for and firing stinger missles and dodging lasers and shit was cool and intense. Now you have dumb Gekko and Co and it's simply a matter of lining them up and shooting away. What is this man...All the while Vamp and Raiden have some kick ass scene going on that you wish you could watch but you are too busy exploding Gekko's before they can...explode...
7: REX vs RAY
Finally...FINALLY SOMETHING COOL. How can this not be cool? Metal fucking Gear REX pilotted by Snake vs Metal Gear Ray. Each armed with awesomeness and programmed with some beat 'em up moves. Fuck yeah man, fuck yeah.
8: Screaming Mantis
Again, is this a boss fight or not? I want to fight a boss, I do not want to fight zombies. Either make your boss DECENT (you know, like a BOSS) or make this fight at least some what creative. Sure, it may have taken me awhile to realise that I have to shoot the most unthreatening thing in the place (his doll) and then pick up the doll. You know what you do with the doll? You throw it at him...or her...or it. You throw the doll anHOLY FUCK GG BOSS DOWN. I'm sure this encounter can be done in the seconds. The only challenge of this fight is how long it takes you to shoot a doll and throw it. eeeeeeehhhhhh...
9: SNAAAAAAAKE?! vs LIQUID!
This fight is beautiful. It is really, really well done. It's probably one of the best, if not the best boss fight I have encountered so far.
Characters and Dialogue
I was disappointed by this. Let's get one thing straight. I'm Solid Fucking Snake. I was a legend even before Shadow Moses. OK? Meryl is too busy wiping Johnny's ass to give two shits about oh I dunno THE GUY THAT'S BEEN SAVING THE FUCKING PLANET for the last x years. Maybe she's in to scat I just don't know...
Same thing with Mei Ling "ooooh I can't believe I'm getting hit on by the famous Soli Snaa!" and what does she say to me? SNAKE PLEASE NO SMOKE ON THE BOAT. DA FUCK? Take one fucking look at me. I'm a god damn broken man. I've been doing this unbelievable shit for god knows how long and no one gives a fuck about me? No one cares to ask about me except my chum OTACOOON? Aite well fuck you too bitch...
Big MAMA "YO SNAKE, I'M YOUR MOTHER THAT YOU NEVER KNEW ABOUT. YO SUP, OH SHIT I'M DEAD." Luckily Snake being such a bad ass doesn't seem to mind that much...
Liquid! I mean...Ocel...Ocelot? So you were Ocelot all along...? Da fuck? why you kill the magic? WHY YOU KILL THE MAGIC?!
Why didn't anyone die? Ok, Naomi did but it's a bit hard to care when I rescue her and then she fucks off again. Sure she helped save the world yadda yadda but whatever yo...
Raiden...Raiden should have fucking died. I was never a Raiden hater nor was I his lover but come on. When he gets himself mashed up by the big mother fucking boat and you get all those flashbacks I thought shit...fairplay Raiden, you were a bit of a dick but...you know, that was kinda cool of you to sacrafice yourself for Snake, nice onOH WAIT HE'S ALIVE! STICK HIM IN THE PLANE!
Oh Raiden, back to save Snake from the FROGS while he goes through that corridor of death (really cool by the way). It may look dumb but fairplay to you being all fucked up yet still fighting back, using the blade with your mouth to slice up the FROGs. Thank you for coming RaideOH SHIT THEY ALL JUST STABBED THE FUCK OUTTA YOU. Damn Raiden...your death will not be forgotteOH WAIT HE'S ALIVE AGAIN. Damnit Raiden for fuck sake. COME ON NOW. This is just not fair.
Don't know how in the hell Meryl and Johnny survived. I'm no doctor but judging from experience, bullets kill people. They didn't even have their nanomachines working! (ok Johnny never has them but) and yet they fucking survive all that? COME ON NOW...go have your wedding and get out of here.
I don't like the ability to purchase guns and ammo faster than you can sneeze any time you want in the game. What's the point in even attempting to infiltrate the locations when you can beam down a grenade launcher from the Enterprise any time you want? Where is the desperation? Where is the challenge?
They completely ruined Shadow Moses for me too. I stood there getting ready to sneak passed the camera when ut oh...I get spotted...what the...the fu...THE HELL IS THAT? A bowling ball with arms pops out so I shoot it. And then A MILLION MORE POP OUT and I'm shooting away at the end of the walkway having progressed minus from the ladder and in the end I just think fuck this and I jumped down and ran through the big door in to the snow field...
Also the whole "MULTIPLE WAYS TO GO THROUGH LEVEL" thing seems to boil down to shooting soldiers with the help of useless rebels (that are instantly befriended with a friendly wave) or to take the route that is making less decibels and then go round and shoot the soldiers in the back of the head...
Anyway, that's pretty much why I was disappointed with MGS4. It's a good game if you want some...good basic actiony/stealth/shootah but to anyone that expected something along the lines of a Metal Gear Solid game then it fell short in what made the series unique.
The most ridiculous and frustrating event in FF XIII:
+ Show Spoiler +
It's been a long time since it happened but I'm bored and just thought I would recall the time when Final Fantasy 13 actually tried and succeeded in pissing me off. Apart from being hella bored and just playing the game so I could say I completed it, there were two parts in 13 that I actually thought the developers were trying to piss me off. The first one, the Tower on Pulse.
This Tower has 7 floors. You walk in and in order to progress to the upper floors, you must talk to a statue who then gives you a mission.
WHOA WHOA DUDE, you can't haven't puzzles in RPGs any more because if the player has to use their brain (!) for more than 20 seconds then it's obviously NOT WORTH IMPLEMENTING.
So here we have a perfect spot where some sort of puzzle can be implemented. Sure, there aren't that many puzzles in the Final Fantasy's but I would of preferred having to use my brain than what I had to achieve here.
So you talk to a statue. "Sup dude, kill that monster over there."
Okay...I'll just mosey on down and...oh wait, yup, yup that's the thing. So you kill the monster and well done, you can move a bit further. Then you talk to two more statues on the floor who issue you another assassination mission.
Okay cool...done those...now to hop in to the elevator and on to the next floor! "Howdy, please murder this monster located at -124X and 55Y and you can proceed." So...another floor's worth of murdering some random monster...okay...okay...next floor... Basically it's the same shit over and over again as you progress up each floor. This alone was pretty damn boring and at this point in the game I had been getting so bored with battles because even though my characters fucking murked everything, the whole process still took longer than needed and to the fact that despite my awesome skills, I don't receive additional CP, only items that I couldn't give a shit about.
Anyway, the part that made me rage was on the sixth floor. There is a small patch of ice that appears and blocks the way to a statue (HOLY FUCK). After carefully ignoring the fact that my characters can jump five miles high and cast spells like FIRAGA (fire vs ice...I'm sure I'm missing something here...) it appears that this small patch of ice is HOLY FUCKING IMPASSABLE!
So I get a new mission to stab something so spend more time running around to get to the target. At this point I had started dodging the monsters because I really could not be fucking arsed anymore.
HERE I AM and I slay the monster. Ha...Hang on! The ice...THE ICE HAS GONE! I CAN TALK TO THIS STATUE NOW!
Little did I know I was about to get real fucking annoyed. You see, I am on the sixth floor. The statue I need to now get too is also on the sixth floor. It is about 10cm away from me on the minimap. So I start to run round...
HANG THE FUCK ON! Where I am currently, I CANNOT get to the statue despite it being so close to me. This part of the sixth floor is NOT connected to the other part of the sixth floor. You're telling me that I HAVE TO RUN ALL THE WAY FUCKING BACK TO THE ELEVATOR, with all the monster refuckingspawning with each scene and I have to go back to THE FOURTH FLOOR (with all the fucking respawns) and the RUN AROUND TO THE OTHER ELEVATOR ACROSS THE MAP (with all th...) and then take that elevator BACK UP TO THE SIXTH FLOOR (monstahs) and then run round all the way back to the fucking statue which I was virtually 10cm away from AT THE START OF THIS WHOLE FUCKING PROCESS?
WHAT
THE
FUCK
ARE YOU GUYS FUCKING DOING? This place is so fucking long, so fucking boring, so fucking bland and I was so pained by the fact that these designers hadn't fucking designed anything. Just some stupid needlessly large (rod) run around to prolong this dreadful, dreadful experience.
I got out of this shithole and saved it. I needed a break. I could not believe how unbelievably poor this was. What the fuck are these level designers doing? Did they not learn from Final Fantasy 12 where huge boring landscapes dotted with monsters is REALLY LAME?
Holy fuck that was totally when I became brain dead and my body was put on silent running just to cruise to the end of this damn game.
Little did I know, something just as fgvc jxfvcojopcvicrtjiopjoxv god damn stupid was going to happen.
When you get inside...I don't even remember but when you get inside some thing and the whole level goes trippy as fuck for no reason at all where the floor breaks apart and flies around and has some mad colours. You run along this path, talk to some trippy fucking thing that does nothing except FUCKS OFF and appears at the end of another long ass path that you have to RUN ALL THE WAY AROUND AND DOWN just to speak to it afuckinggain and IT DOES IT AGAIN! It disappears and reappears somewhere for no damn reason and OH YEAH TOTAL SENSE I WILL RUN AND TALK TO IT AGAIN.
I couldn't believe that such gameplay and level design made it in to this game and how actually fucking frustrating it was. If I had a knife with me at the time I would have grinded the blade down my face and then probably would have stabbed myself in the arm (cos I'm a pussy).
THANK GOD I DIDN'T HAVE A KNIFE WITH ME!
This Tower has 7 floors. You walk in and in order to progress to the upper floors, you must talk to a statue who then gives you a mission.
WHOA WHOA DUDE, you can't haven't puzzles in RPGs any more because if the player has to use their brain (!) for more than 20 seconds then it's obviously NOT WORTH IMPLEMENTING.
So here we have a perfect spot where some sort of puzzle can be implemented. Sure, there aren't that many puzzles in the Final Fantasy's but I would of preferred having to use my brain than what I had to achieve here.
So you talk to a statue. "Sup dude, kill that monster over there."
Okay...I'll just mosey on down and...oh wait, yup, yup that's the thing. So you kill the monster and well done, you can move a bit further. Then you talk to two more statues on the floor who issue you another assassination mission.
Okay cool...done those...now to hop in to the elevator and on to the next floor! "Howdy, please murder this monster located at -124X and 55Y and you can proceed." So...another floor's worth of murdering some random monster...okay...okay...next floor... Basically it's the same shit over and over again as you progress up each floor. This alone was pretty damn boring and at this point in the game I had been getting so bored with battles because even though my characters fucking murked everything, the whole process still took longer than needed and to the fact that despite my awesome skills, I don't receive additional CP, only items that I couldn't give a shit about.
Anyway, the part that made me rage was on the sixth floor. There is a small patch of ice that appears and blocks the way to a statue (HOLY FUCK). After carefully ignoring the fact that my characters can jump five miles high and cast spells like FIRAGA (fire vs ice...I'm sure I'm missing something here...) it appears that this small patch of ice is HOLY FUCKING IMPASSABLE!
So I get a new mission to stab something so spend more time running around to get to the target. At this point I had started dodging the monsters because I really could not be fucking arsed anymore.
HERE I AM and I slay the monster. Ha...Hang on! The ice...THE ICE HAS GONE! I CAN TALK TO THIS STATUE NOW!
Little did I know I was about to get real fucking annoyed. You see, I am on the sixth floor. The statue I need to now get too is also on the sixth floor. It is about 10cm away from me on the minimap. So I start to run round...
HANG THE FUCK ON! Where I am currently, I CANNOT get to the statue despite it being so close to me. This part of the sixth floor is NOT connected to the other part of the sixth floor. You're telling me that I HAVE TO RUN ALL THE WAY FUCKING BACK TO THE ELEVATOR, with all the monster refuckingspawning with each scene and I have to go back to THE FOURTH FLOOR (with all the fucking respawns) and the RUN AROUND TO THE OTHER ELEVATOR ACROSS THE MAP (with all th...) and then take that elevator BACK UP TO THE SIXTH FLOOR (monstahs) and then run round all the way back to the fucking statue which I was virtually 10cm away from AT THE START OF THIS WHOLE FUCKING PROCESS?
WHAT
THE
FUCK
ARE YOU GUYS FUCKING DOING? This place is so fucking long, so fucking boring, so fucking bland and I was so pained by the fact that these designers hadn't fucking designed anything. Just some stupid needlessly large (rod) run around to prolong this dreadful, dreadful experience.
I got out of this shithole and saved it. I needed a break. I could not believe how unbelievably poor this was. What the fuck are these level designers doing? Did they not learn from Final Fantasy 12 where huge boring landscapes dotted with monsters is REALLY LAME?
Holy fuck that was totally when I became brain dead and my body was put on silent running just to cruise to the end of this damn game.
Little did I know, something just as fgvc jxfvcojopcvicrtjiopjoxv god damn stupid was going to happen.
When you get inside...I don't even remember but when you get inside some thing and the whole level goes trippy as fuck for no reason at all where the floor breaks apart and flies around and has some mad colours. You run along this path, talk to some trippy fucking thing that does nothing except FUCKS OFF and appears at the end of another long ass path that you have to RUN ALL THE WAY AROUND AND DOWN just to speak to it afuckinggain and IT DOES IT AGAIN! It disappears and reappears somewhere for no damn reason and OH YEAH TOTAL SENSE I WILL RUN AND TALK TO IT AGAIN.
I couldn't believe that such gameplay and level design made it in to this game and how actually fucking frustrating it was. If I had a knife with me at the time I would have grinded the blade down my face and then probably would have stabbed myself in the arm (cos I'm a pussy).
THANK GOD I DIDN'T HAVE A KNIFE WITH ME!
My first introduction rant, wondering why Assassin's Creed 2 decides to punish me for using my imagination and having fun:
+ Show Spoiler +
A painful thing to know, in my opinion, is that these kids nowadays, their first gaming experience will be with this latest gen. They won't know of any of the gems of the past, you know, when games actually felt like they were here to put their foot down and say "I'M FUCKING HERE AND I'M AWESOME" for years to come, unlike console games which say "I'M FUCKING HERE. SEQUEL OUT NEXT YEAR!!!" .
Not really thinking much at the moment at what I would say for this, so I'll just say some things that I've said before. Here are some games that are fucking stupid.
Assassin's Creed 1 and 2 When I first played this, one of the first things I did was grabbing an innocent bystander and then pushing them in to a market stool in which it then collapsed and killed them. Sweet. 45 minutes later I'm bored. Assassin's Creed 2 was sooooooooooooooooo boring. I don't know how they couldn't make combat any more exciting than the first. Incoming attack! *Hold right trigger, press B to counter* Dead Incoming attack! *Hold right trigger, press B to counter* Dead
There are 2 guards surrounding me. There are 5 guards surrounding me. There are 8 guards surrounding me and they all just stand around me waiting and attack one by one pretty much. You can just spam the attack button and when they block you just attack the guy behind you instead. How boring, how unimaginative. BUT WAIT THERE'S A BIG DUDE YOU CAN'T COUNTER!
INCOMING ATTACK! *Hold right trigger, Press A to dodge* *Spam X* *Repeat*
I mean what... Sure, I can use different weapons now and assassinating people with them is pretty cool but it's only the same few animations over and over again.
And what's the deal with automatically loading my game up because I killed 3 civilians? What the fuck? Who the fuck are you? Why the fuck am I getting penalised because I(!) WANT(!) to take out some frustration or to HAVE(!) FUN(!) on an innocent bystander? So I'm allowed to brutally murder one civilian and you warn me. I can brutally murder another and you say "Ezio did not kill civilians!" Well what the fuck I THINK I JUST DID. I'M EZIO RIGHT? I BOUGHT THIS GAME RIGHT? WHY CAN'T I PLAY THE GAME HOW I WANT TO PLAY THE GAME? And then I kill a third civilian and it loads up from my last check point. The fuck? Why are you punishing me? I'm a god damn assassin. If I want to imagine stuff in the game (YOU KNOW, IMAGINE STUFF) like that woman over there is a murderer and she's plotting to kill that priest over there, then why am I punished for chasing her, beating her up and throwing her in to the river? Why can't I have my own fun?
So you're telling me that I'm allowed to murder all of these town guards who are protecting the people of the city (Oh no, some of them are naughty and ruffle up civilians which means they deserve to die...) but I'm not allowed to bludgeon some random guy in the back of the head because he's a notorious pie theif? Who the fuck are you to limit my gameplay and fun.
And so it loads me up and I go on a rampage again. Loads me up again. "HEY DUDE EZIO DID NOT KILL CIVILIANS" Well fuck, I thought I WAS EZIO. I don't give a shit about whatever this virtual reality breeze is, my actions are MY ACTIONS. Why can I kill 2 people but the third IS WAY OUT OF LINE MAN. Why do they care? They spent all this time making these (bland) cities but OH GOD IF I STEP OVER HERE then all then my screen goes fucked up and all these white lines start having a party. Why? Why are you interrupting not only my gameplay but ruin my immersion? Yo I'm this bad ass assassin walking round these mean streets of Venice anOH I CAN'T GO DOWN THAT STREET because I need to climb up a massive building first SO I CAN SEE IT. Yeah thanks a lot man, way to ruin the city and remind me that I'm some dork in some machine, really good idea of you...
My next blog will either be about why FF13 is shit or why Modern Warfare 2 is the worst online experience I have ever played on, worse than 10 years ago, worse than gamespy, worse than the old school MSN Gaming zone.
Not really thinking much at the moment at what I would say for this, so I'll just say some things that I've said before. Here are some games that are fucking stupid.
Assassin's Creed 1 and 2 When I first played this, one of the first things I did was grabbing an innocent bystander and then pushing them in to a market stool in which it then collapsed and killed them. Sweet. 45 minutes later I'm bored. Assassin's Creed 2 was sooooooooooooooooo boring. I don't know how they couldn't make combat any more exciting than the first. Incoming attack! *Hold right trigger, press B to counter* Dead Incoming attack! *Hold right trigger, press B to counter* Dead
There are 2 guards surrounding me. There are 5 guards surrounding me. There are 8 guards surrounding me and they all just stand around me waiting and attack one by one pretty much. You can just spam the attack button and when they block you just attack the guy behind you instead. How boring, how unimaginative. BUT WAIT THERE'S A BIG DUDE YOU CAN'T COUNTER!
INCOMING ATTACK! *Hold right trigger, Press A to dodge* *Spam X* *Repeat*
I mean what... Sure, I can use different weapons now and assassinating people with them is pretty cool but it's only the same few animations over and over again.
And what's the deal with automatically loading my game up because I killed 3 civilians? What the fuck? Who the fuck are you? Why the fuck am I getting penalised because I(!) WANT(!) to take out some frustration or to HAVE(!) FUN(!) on an innocent bystander? So I'm allowed to brutally murder one civilian and you warn me. I can brutally murder another and you say "Ezio did not kill civilians!" Well what the fuck I THINK I JUST DID. I'M EZIO RIGHT? I BOUGHT THIS GAME RIGHT? WHY CAN'T I PLAY THE GAME HOW I WANT TO PLAY THE GAME? And then I kill a third civilian and it loads up from my last check point. The fuck? Why are you punishing me? I'm a god damn assassin. If I want to imagine stuff in the game (YOU KNOW, IMAGINE STUFF) like that woman over there is a murderer and she's plotting to kill that priest over there, then why am I punished for chasing her, beating her up and throwing her in to the river? Why can't I have my own fun?
So you're telling me that I'm allowed to murder all of these town guards who are protecting the people of the city (Oh no, some of them are naughty and ruffle up civilians which means they deserve to die...) but I'm not allowed to bludgeon some random guy in the back of the head because he's a notorious pie theif? Who the fuck are you to limit my gameplay and fun.
And so it loads me up and I go on a rampage again. Loads me up again. "HEY DUDE EZIO DID NOT KILL CIVILIANS" Well fuck, I thought I WAS EZIO. I don't give a shit about whatever this virtual reality breeze is, my actions are MY ACTIONS. Why can I kill 2 people but the third IS WAY OUT OF LINE MAN. Why do they care? They spent all this time making these (bland) cities but OH GOD IF I STEP OVER HERE then all then my screen goes fucked up and all these white lines start having a party. Why? Why are you interrupting not only my gameplay but ruin my immersion? Yo I'm this bad ass assassin walking round these mean streets of Venice anOH I CAN'T GO DOWN THAT STREET because I need to climb up a massive building first SO I CAN SEE IT. Yeah thanks a lot man, way to ruin the city and remind me that I'm some dork in some machine, really good idea of you...
My next blog will either be about why FF13 is shit or why Modern Warfare 2 is the worst online experience I have ever played on, worse than 10 years ago, worse than gamespy, worse than the old school MSN Gaming zone.
My next two I will have to direct you to my IGN blog because of the added videos and images that won't copy over.
"Game Music" touches on why "background music" is one of the most powerful tools a game can have, helping it transform it from a game to an experience but why it must understand its own existence. It also contains AWESOME background music that I implore you to check out (especially Lords of Magic).
http://www.ign.com/blogs/bakabear/2011/07/07/game-music
And lastly, my blog, "ME2 is bad" is about why Mass Effect 2 is...not exactly a bad game in itself but so much worse than what made the first Mass Effect such a unique and fulfilling experience. It is exactly the reason why I have such a stance because it ripped out everything that made Mass Effect a mature universe, with its amazing locations, story and characters and simply threw it some polished (yet boring) combat and carried on its story.
Anyone that praises Mass Effect 2 *must* praise Mass Effect 1 for just being a better game.
http://www.ign.com/blogs/bakabear/2011/07/04/me2-is-bad
I'm posting these here because it's a little hard to get feedback on IGN. There are people that masturbate to the amount of followers they have, I see one guy that spams the same message on everybody's wall saying something like, "i follow you you follow me".
He even wrote that on my wall and I said, "no thanks" to which I got "why". I then explained that he posts very little actual content and that he spams the same message to everybody, to which he had a fit which just encouraged the thought that he was 12 years old.
Anyway, any feedback or general thoughts appreciated. If you don't like the swearing in the spoilers it's due to being more ranty blogs. The latest two and I do cut down a lot.
I'm sure and hope that you will find sense in these.
