What Are You Playing Right Now? (Gaming Thread)

botfly10 said:

ooh, I got that during a sale for like $5 or something but have never touched it. Lemme know what you think.

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yeah, i got the metro redux bundle for like 7 bucks i think. i tried playing the original version of 2033 years ago on my old pc but only got a short way into it before i couldnt deal with the low frame rate and im just now reaching the point were i gave up on it. i can say that the mood and atmosphere are excellent, and though i dont really remember how the original looked, and couldnt comment on it any way since just to attempt to play it im pretty sure it was on low settings, but im running redux maxed out(no ssaa) and it looks damn good, especially considering its a remaster of a six year old game. granted they are using the new engine from last light.

as for the gameplay, so far its a slow burn thatll suddenly throw you into a heated moment and it works, but its not your typical fps, its more a first person survival horror game and as such the gun play is rather clunky, making things a pain in the ass at times. especially on hardcore difficulty. problem is, with most games, normal is too easy, and hard can be, well, like i said be a pain in the ass. often due to the way devs usually up the difficulty by just tweaking the game to be ridiculously cheap. with that said, metro isnt ridiculously cheap, its just that being swarmed by mutants from every direction that can soak up bullets while you frantically try to aim and shoot with rather clunky mechanics, all while your vision is blurred and flashing red from taking massive damage, can result in a number of repeated deaths. ill stick with hardcore though.

anyway, its defiantly worth playing so far imo. im not sure itll live up to the new order though. that game was special. mechanically is was the fps perfected and story wise it blended the macho kill everything attitude of the series, and the genre in general, while also instilling some real heart and emotion. sure there was still some silly video gamey stuff, or really silly action movie stuff, if you will, but overall it transcended the genre and the medium, or at least the bar usually set by the medium, imo... and then topping it all off with that cover of the chris isaak song playing as the credits rolled... man. well, metro often gets high praise as well, so we shall see.

Ha, I am glad you had that experience with the new order.

Have you checked out the Extra Credits youtube show? I really, really recommend it. Its a serious discussion of games as art and stays will above all the usual video game teenager bullshit.

https://www.youtube.com/user/ExtraCreditz

Here is the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KG1ziCvLkJ0&list=PLB9B0CA00461BB187&index=1

[video=youtube;KG1ziCvLkJ0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KG1ziCvLkJ0&list=PLB9B0CA00461BB187&index=1[/video]

[video=youtube;_2Tp8JopdIc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2Tp8JopdIc&index=7&list=PLB9B0CA00461BB187[/video]

i have to say, based off their other recent offerings, im thinking they gave bioware a bit to much credit. lol i also do not believe art can change a person, or the world, nor should it be the desire of an artist to do so. anything you find in a work of art is a reflection of yourself, it isnt something previously lacking, even if you hadnt acknowledged it on a conscious level. but i guess it really depends on what you mean by change. can a work of art influence, creating something new. yep, and therefore the world as been changed in a way. but in the grand scheme of things, outside of influencing other art? no. anyway, imo some of the least impactful art is that with a clear "message."

as for games as art, im still not sure. is their as much creativity and imagination on display in some games as in any other medium? absolutely. and can a dev team itself include a number of artists? yes. but is the final interactive product art? im not sure. theres too many people involved in the creation therefor lacking a singular vision, and as an interactive medium a game also starts life with the audience in mind. it is created for the player rather than for the artists themselves. but at the same time whos to say what is and is not art? its all up to individual preference, and if a glass of piss or shit on a plate is art, a game surely is.

and there are a few game directors out their who clearly have a singular vision that finds its way into their games. for them dev teams seem to be more like a film crew in that everyone works to bring the directors vision to life rather than a collective of various visions. take suda51, kojima(though he himself says games are not art), and Miyazaki for example. though in miyazakis case, as great as the soul games may be, people seem to forget about kings filed and that souls is really just a third person continuation of that, so id give a good chunk of the credit to the kings fields director... but i digress.

Many games absolutely are art. That doesn't mean they are all good or worthy of the term. But at the end of the day, all art really is, is something that can evoke emotion, generate empathy - cause you to feel something. And the better the art, the more visceral those emotions are. And great art evokes truly foreign emotions that demand to be reckoned with. And games are definitely headed in that direction.

And games deserve to be judged in the context of their own medium rather than against other media. Judging a specific game's artistic merit cannot be done relative to another medium.

Games are a bizarre new art form because of their interactive nature and the reduced role or writing or dialog in conveying narrative. The medium is very much in its infant stages and is still learning how to wield its unique mechanisms of narrative. Like they pointed out in the episode, creators fuck it up all the time by leaning on mechanisms from other media that don't work or are unnecessary in games. But as gamers continue to age and continue to support more and more ambitious, exploratory narrative, they are gonna continue to get better.

Anyway, the are games art conversation is not very interesting to me.

I am much more interested is thinking about the artistic merits of specific games or elements of games. I have had experiences where I spent days thinking about or just feeling the impact of a game or a particular sequence in a game. To me, it is very much worthwhile to ponder and discuss and share those as I would with other forms of art.

Check this out. Its a little game called loneliness.

http://www.necessarygames.com/my-games/loneliness/flash

This one is just fucked up

http://www.necessarygames.com/my-games/freedom-bridge/flash

i agree, whether labeled as art or not doesnt really matter to me, all that matters to me is whether a game takes me to new and interesting worlds and stimulates my imagination/emotions. which is what i want from any medium, period.

speaking of which, im a bit further into 2033 now and like i said, gameplay can be a little clunky, but ive gotten used to it, and the stealth really doesnt work for me, probably because im never very good at stealth. so, iv been ending up shooting myself out of situations instead, which is par for the course really. lol except in the new order, that pulled off the stealth sections superbly.

anyway, im not very far in so the story might get better, but while its decent its nothing special so far. the post apocalyptic world the game creates is immersive and atmospheric though. still, to bring up NO yet again, it hasnt impressed me the way the new order did, despite being far more "serious" on the surface. but again thats part of what made NO special. it simultaneously embraced the mindless, silly action while also being self aware and poking fun at it, and all the while containing far more substance than it would originally seem. plus, admittedly, im a sucker for a good love story.

and while games that try hard to not be games or to be art, or to comment on the morality of killing fictional digital representatives of human beings, annoy me usually, another thing that, for me, holds games back is that they tend to be "gamey," either through gameplay that constantly reminds you that you are playing and that the gameplay is isolated from the story being told, or simply through being cheesy. and yet NO was gamey to the extreme, but managed to be so in the best possible way while again, in a self aware manner that elevated it imo. plus the game play itself was executed with such craft, that it should be the standard all FPSs aspire to reach. not to mention the level design, art direction, score, etc. sure it wasnt perfect and you really had to suspend you disbelief to go along with the flow of the story, but it overcame its flaws. NO may very well be a top five game of all time IMO. and its hard for me to even make a top five since most games, even great ones, arent THAT impressive as far as im usually concerned, though that doesnt mean i wasnt impressed. but like you said, im a picky fuck.

Monsieur Tirets said:

i agree, whether labeled as art or not doesnt really matter to me, all that matters to me is whether a game takes me to new and interesting worlds and stimulates my imagination/emotions. which is what i want from any medium, period.

speaking of which, im a bit further into 2033 now and like i said, gameplay can be a little clunky, but ive gotten used to it, and the stealth really doesnt work for me, probably because im never very good at stealth. so, iv been ending up shooting myself out of situations instead, which is par for the course really. lol except in the new order, that pulled off the stealth sections superbly.

anyway, im not very far in so the story might get better, but while its decent its nothing special so far. the post apocalyptic world the game creates is immersive and atmospheric though. still, to bring up NO yet again, it hasnt impressed me the way the new order did, despite being far more "serious" on the surface. but again thats part of what made NO special. it simultaneously embraced the mindless, silly action while also being self aware and poking fun at it, and all the while containing far more substance than it would originally seem. plus, admittedly, im a sucker for a good love story.

and while games that try hard to not be games or to be art, or to comment on the morality of killing fictional digital representatives of human beings, annoy me usually, another thing that, for me, holds games back is that they tend to be "gamey," either through gameplay that constantly reminds you that you are playing and that the gameplay is isolated from the story being told, or simply through being cheesy. and yet NO was gamey to the extreme, but managed to be so in the best possible way while again, in a self aware manner that elevated it imo. plus the game play itself was executed with such craft, that it should be the standard all FPSs aspire to reach. not to mention the level design, art direction, score, etc. sure it wasnt perfect and you really had to suspend you disbelief to go along with the flow of the story, but it overcame its flaws. NO may very well be a top five game of all time IMO. and its hard for me to even make a top five since most games, even great ones, arent THAT impressive as far as im usually concerned, though that doesnt mean i wasnt impressed. but like you said, im a picky fuck.

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You ever play any of the Stalker series?

I played 1 of the games and felt like I was supposed to be stealthy alot, I never seemed to have enough ammo, but I was constantly running into situations where I would have a few enemies to fight or sneak past and either I would use all my ammo trying to fight my way out or I would die lol.

Your experience with Metro sounds like how I felt about Stalker.

I never did finish that game, I kept getting frustrated with the combat and there isn't a whole lot of storytelling in the game.

Ares said:

You ever play any of the Stalker series?

I played 1 of the games and felt like I was supposed to be stealthy alot, I never seemed to have enough ammo, but I was constantly running into situations where I would have a few enemies to fight or sneak past and either I would use all my ammo trying to fight my way out or I would die lol.

Your experience with Metro sounds like how I felt about Stalker.

I never did finish that game, I kept getting frustrated with the combat and there isn't a whole lot of storytelling in the game.

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i tried the first stalker years ago, but couldnt really get into it. everything just seemed to feel bland and tedious. i also tried the last stalker in the series but my pc at the time couldnt run it at a playable frame rate.

As for metro, its a really good game actually, i just cant pull off the stealth very well, at least not on hardcore difficulty, since enemies seem to be super aware, able to hear my sneaking footsteps despite being engaged with another faction as gunfire and shouting rings through the air. or they just happen to know i sniped their comrade with a silenced shot despite facing in another direction all while the aforementioned gunfire and shouting continues to ring out. though shooting your way out is doable as long as you remain under cover and approach it in a semi stealth manner. people often say the game makes you conserve ammo because its scarce but i have a shit ton of ammo and im playing on the "survival" mode which is suppose to make it less plentiful. maybe its because im looting all the dead bodies i leave in my wake. lol

Monsieur Tirets said:

i tried the first stalker years ago, but couldnt really get into it. everything just seemed to feel bland and tedious. i also tried the last stalker in the series but my pc at the time couldnt run it at a playable frame rate.

As for metro, its a really good game actually, i just cant pull off the stealth very well, at least not on hardcore difficulty, since enemies seem to be super aware, able to hear my sneaking footsteps despite being engaged with another faction as gunfire and shouting rings through the air. or they just happen to know i sniped their comrade with a silenced shot despite facing in another direction all while the aforementioned gunfire and shouting continues to ring out. though shooting your way out is doable as long as you remain under cover and approach it in a semi stealth manner. people often say the game makes you conserve ammo because its scarce but i have a shit ton of ammo and im playing on the "survival" mode which is suppose to make it less plentiful. maybe its because im looting all the dead bodies i leave in my wake. lol

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I felt the same about the original Stalker game, I checked and that is the one I played.

According to the wiki is has a plot, but I recall getting stuck trying to go to some place on foot and kept getting into fights I couldn't win and I don't remember much plot.

It felt like alot of the same thing, go somewhere on foot and encounter packs of enemies at chokepoints.... ragequit somewhere along the way lol

a bit further into metro 2033 now and i have to say, unless it really picks up itll end up being something of a disappointment. its not bad but simply rather dull.

Whoops!

finished 2033. it was alright. not bad, not great. the atmosphere and immersion kind of lose their impact farther into it since it gets rather repetitive. grey tunnels/underground complex... metro station safe zone.... mutant ambush... rinse, repeat, with a excursion to the surface thrown in for good measure occasionally. though those too are rather repetitive. and the story, for all the talk about how good it was was very disappointing imo, it never really dove into the details and remained in the background most of the time simply told in passing.

and, though it really doesnt matter since one of the ending was thrown out as non canon for the sequel, the way the handled the multiple endings was half assed. you needed to stick around and listen to random conversations people have in the stations. conversations that have nothing to do with you or your mission and appear to be there simply to add to the immersion. but nope, guess not. i didnt find that out until after beating the game. same goes with not being able to kill to many enemies, or not running away at certain times, though the game makes it seem that you most definitely need to run away to progress further. that really didnt bother me to much though, the main issue was the game simply began to feel rather repetitive, and sections that on paper could have been really interesting simply felt clunky.

again, not a bad game, but nothing special imo. but there was a lot there to hint at a special game. so i have hope for last light which i just started.

Rawr!

I just saw a leak suggesting that the PS 4.5 is going to be build on zen and polaris architecture.

I found that a Kickstarter funded a team who made a game called War for the Overworld which is basically Dungeon Keeper 3.

It had all positive feedback, so I bought it and played it all weekend.

Very fun.

You guys really need a thread to discuss graphics cards.... lol you writing Novels in the "What are you playing right now?" thread.